INSTITUTE FOR VOLUME TWELVE, NUMBER ONE SPRING 1992 The JOUFIial Of HlStOflCai ReVieW HISTORICAL REVIEW The Journal of Historical Review ifr m Robert Faurisson A Dry Chronicle of the Pur ge Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary Charles A. Lindbergh War and Peace Two Historiy Speeches^ Theodore J. O’Keefe Why Holocaust^ Revisionism? —Reviews— Chutzpcih Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America —Historical News and Comment— Pearl Flarbor Attack No Surprise Hoover-Era American Plan For War Against Britain and Canada Uncovered The Holocaust in Perspective: A Letter by Paul Rassinier jjj VOLUME TWELVE, NUMBER ONE SPRING 1992 The Journal of Historical Review VOLUME TWELVE, NUMBER 1/SPRING 1992 Editor: Theodore J. O’Keefe Associate Editor: Mark Weber EDITORIAL ADVI GEORGE ASHLEY, Ph.D. Los Angeles Unified School District (Ret.) ENRIQUE AYNAT, LL.B. Torreblanca, Spain PHILLIP BARKER, Ph.D. Minneapolis, Minnesota JOHN BENNETT, LL.B. Australian Civil Liberties Union Melbourne, Australia FRIEDRICH P. BERG, B.Sc. The Historical Review Committee Ft. Lee, New Jersey ALEXANDER V. BERKIS, LL.M., Ph.D. Longwood College (Ret.) WALTER BEVERAGGI-ALLENDE, Ph.D. University of Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, Argentina ARTHUR R. BUTZ, Ph.D. Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois BOYD CATHEY, Ph.D. The Southern Partisan ROBERT H. COUNTESS, Ph.D. Huntsville, Alabama ALBERT J. ECKSTEIN, Ph.D. Private Research Consultant ROBERT FAURISSON, Ph.D. University of Lyon-2 Lyon, France GEORG FRANZ-WILLING, Ph.D. Überlingen, West Germany ORY COMMITTEE VERNE E. FUERST, Ph.D. Hartford, Connecticut SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN III New Libertarian Long Beach, California R. CLARENCE LANG, Ph.D., B.D. Seguin, Texas MARTIN A. LARSON, Ph.D. Phoenix, Arizona WILLIAM B. LINDSEY, Ph.D. Research Chemist JAMES J. MARTIN, Ph.D. Ralph Myles Publishers Colorado Springs, Colorado CARLO MATTOGNO Italy REVILO P. OLIVER, Ph.D. University of Illinois (Ret.) Urbana, Illinois HENRI ROQUES, Ph.D Colombes, France WILHELM STÄGLICH, Dr. Jur. 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Two copies of each reprint must be submitted to the publisher of The Journal of Historical Review. Articles may be translated into foreign languages only with author’s permission. Table of Contents Volume Twelve, No. 1 Spring, 1992 Articles A Dry Chronicle of the Purge 5 Robert Faurisson Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 31 War and Peace: Two Historie Speeches 87 Charles A. Lindbergh Why Holocaust Revisionism? 99 Theodore J. O’Keefe Book Reviews Alan M. Dershowitz, Chutzpah 109 John Cobden David Hacket Fischer, Aibion’s Seed: Four 114 British Folkways in America Nelson Rosit Historical News and Comment Pearl Harbor Attack No Surprise 119 Hoover-Era American Plan For War 121 Against Britain and Canada Uncovered The Holocaust in Perspective 123 A Letter by Paul Rassinier About the Contributors 128 Editorial Note It is doubtful that anything has done more to shape the populär American view of history than motion pictures. Many Americans really believe, for instance, that the wartime mo¬ tion picture classic Casablanca is a more or less accurate depiction of the “good guys” and “bad guys” of the Second World War. One of Hollywood’s most enduring populär images of this era has been that of the idealistic and courageous French Resistance fighter, who cleverly outwits the wicked but gener- ally inept German occupiers. Like so much eise about this period, this widely-accepted image has only the most tenuous relationship with reality. In fact, it was not until the final year of the war, and par- ticularly after the Anglo-American D-Day landing at Norman¬ dy in June 1944, that populär sentiment in France turned against the legitimate government of Marshai Pdtain. Right up until the end of the war, in fact, he was still widely respected and even revered. As French-Jewish film maker Marcel Ophuls strikingly em- phasized in his much-discussed documentary film The Sorrow and the Pity, support for the anti-German Resistance move¬ ment was actually quite limited, and many Resistance activists were less than admirable characters. The simplistic view of most “educated” Americans is that Marshai Pdtain was a traitor and that “Free French” leader Charles De Gaulle was a patriotic hero. In truth, each of these extraordinary figures was a patriot—each in his own remark- able way. Similarly, few Americans realize that it was France that declared war against Germany in 1939 (and not the other way around], or that after the stunning French military defeat in June 1940, Germany’s treatment of the vanquished nation was vastly more generous and benign than the Allied treatment of defeated Germany five years later. The role of De Gaulle’s “Free French” Allied forces is well known, but few Americans realize that many thousands of Frenchman fought with the Germans, most notably in the “Charlemagne” SS Division. (Continued on page 118 ) A Dry Chronicle of the Purge Summary Executions in Certain Communes of Charente Limousine ROBERT FAURISSON I n the course of the 1960s and the beginning of the ’70s, Robert Faurisson began an investigation of the Purge (French: EpurationJ, limited to those summary executions which took place in the summer of 1944 in a part of Charente known as Charente Limousine, or Confolentais. This meticuJous study was to have been pubJished under the title A Dry Chroni¬ cle of 78 Days of the Purge in Certain Communes of Confolen¬ tais. The difflculties Professor Faurisson encountered in his other inquiry, into the gas chambers and the genocide, prevented him from completing his work on the Purge. In no way prej'udicing the possibility of future publication of the full Chronicle, the French Revisionist Journal Revue d’histoire rövisionniste (no. 4) published in spring 1991 several excerptsfrom the uncompleted work. The Journal of Historical Review, accordingly, thanks Professor Faurisson and the Revue /or enabling us to bring por- tions of this important (and much neglected) chapter of the history of the Second World War to American readers. Professor Faurisson has catalogued the executions attri- butable to two maquis, or guerrilla bands, that held sway over the Southern pari of Confolentais and made occasional incur- sions into the extreme west ofthe department of Haute-Vienne. The maquis “Bernard” and the maquis “Chabanne” are the two maquis in question. The first, a Communist maquis, was a force in the environs of Chabanais-sur-Charente; the second was socialist, or centrist, and active around Chasseneuil-sur- Bonnieure. Chabanais and Chasseneuil are on RN 141, which runs from Angoulßme to Limoges. The four extracts that follow are: —A list of executions by the maquis “Bernard”; —“Executed in Her Wedding Gown,”the story öf MIle. Armagnac, 6 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW a victim of the maquis “Bernard”; —A list of executions by the maquis “Chabanne”; —“The Purge: From the Death of a Priest under Torture,” the story of Father Heymös, a victim of the maquis “Chabanne.” The first extract was published, though with grave typographical errors, in Maurice Barddche’s monthly review Defense de l’Occident fJuly-August 1977, pp. 44-49). The second extract, concerning Miie. Armagnac, was com- municated, along with much other information, to Henri Amouroux in fanuary of 1988. The latter thereupon made substantial use o/ it in volume 8 of La Grande Histoire des Franqais sous l’Occupation, under the title “Joys and Sorrows of the Liberated People (6 June to 1 September 1944)” fprinted 10 October 1988 by Robert Laffont). In the list o/575 persons to whom Henri Amouroux tenders his thanks, the name of Robert Faurisson is not included. The third extract has never been published, but was sent to Henri Amouroux, who used it to some advantage. The fourth extract appeared in Les Ecrits de Paris (March 1986, pp. 40-48) under the title “The Purge: From the Death of a Priest to Trun cated Statistics [of the Purge].” I. A List of Some Executions by the Maquis Bernard (15 June to 11 August 1944) Responsibility for the executions by the Communist maquis “Bernard” rests with Bernard Lelay, a printer at L’Humanitd, the daily newspaper of the French Communist Party, and with his followers. After Bernard Lelay, the person most directly implicated in the executions was Augustin Raoux, known as “Gandhi.” A Jewish convert to Catholicism, Raoux was a solicitor at Ruffec. Assisted by his son Philippe, he directed the Deuxiöme Bureau (Security and Intelligence). He was both prosecutor and judge. The accused had no attorney, and there was no question of last rites for those condemned to death. The corpses were not put into coffins. The dead were not restored to their families. Very expeditious, this maquis seldom used torture. Junien B., native of La Pbruse, killed Franqois Destempes by means of torture. Militiaman 1 Labuze was tortured at the rectory of Saint-Quentin and then shot. Bernard Lelay died in 1975. In 1977, his ashes were re- moved to the crypt of the Memorial of the Resistance at Chass- eneuil-sur-B onnieure. A Dry Chroni de ofthe Purge 7 Among the 72 or 73 cases enumerated below, there are 14 women. Among them one who was executed in her wedding dress (see pp. below); and another, 22 years of age and the mother of two infants, who was shot even though she was 7 months pregnant. The oldest of those shot was a 77-year-old peasant; the youngest, a schoolboy 16 years of age. The names followed by an asterisk are those of persons on behalf of whom their families, after the war, obtained the men- tion “Died for France.” (Before 15 June 1944, this maquis carried out executions in the forest of Rochebrune, near Etagnac. On 1 June: three Ger¬ man prisoners, an unnamed girl, and gendarmerie warrant of- ficer Pierre-Ldon Combas (*); on 12 June: chauffeur Sylvain and watchmaker Vigndras. On the same day, two German railwaymen were killed at Roumaziöres; their dead bodies are still there on the estate of the chäteau of Rochebrune, near fitagnac. After 11 August 1944, the same maquis carried out many ex¬ ecutions in regions other than the one of interest to us here, which is roughly that of the Pressac chäteau, situated near Chabanais [Charente].) — 15 June, Mme. Chevalier, St-Maurice-des-Lions, housewife, age 53. — 17 June, Mme. Beaumatin, Exideuil, schoolteacher, age 33. — 17 June, Gdndral Nadal, Chantrezac, brigadier general, age 65. —17 June, Marcel Nadal, Chantrezac, Student, age 22 (son of the above). —20 June, Charles Besson, Chabanais, school principal, age 46 (one or more of his former students were in the firing squad). —20 June, Antoine de Cazes, Verneuil, landowner, age 43. —20 June, Charles S chwieck, Verneuil, age 21. —20 June, 1 unnamed German soldier, Verneuil. —26 June, Marie-Charles Soury-Lavergne, Rochechouart, im- porter, age 74 (his wife will be executed on 24 July for having protested). —26 June, Pierre V., St-Junien, worker, age 33 (member of the maquis accused of theft). —27 June, Pierre, also known as Julien, Sardin, La Pdruse, carpenter (killed). 8 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW —27 June, Mme. Steiner, Roumaziöres, housewife, age 41. —27 June, Michel Steiner, Roumaziöres, peddler, age 45. —27 June, Jean Steiner, Roumaziöres, laborer, age 20. —27 June, Albert Steiner, Roumaziöres, laborer, age 19. The last four persons mentioned and Jean Bauer, executed on 30 June, were members of one and the same family from Moselle. —28 June, Auroyer (no other information). —28 June, Alfred Desplanques, Suris, tenant farmer, age 43 (father of eight children). —30 June, Mme. Gingeot, St-Junien, bookseller, age 35 (found with both feet cut off after being strung up by the feet with wire). —30 June, Marie-Louise Texerau d, St-Junien, office worker, age 48. —30 June, Henri Charles, Roumaziöres, factory director, age 45. —30 June, Serge Bienvenu, Roumaziöres, accountant, age 39. —30 June, Jean Bauer, Roumaziäres, peddler (brother of Mme. Steiner), age 36. —4 July, Rdgis Trillaud, Roumaziäres, watchmaker, age 34. —4 July, Gaston Louis, Nice, detached guard of the Militia (conveying in a train a set ofblankets.) —4 July, Raymond Auxire, Confolens, age 19. —4 July, Germain Demontoux, St-Maurice-des-Lions, clerk, age 24. —4 July, Georges Maillet, St-Junien, workingman, age 42. —4 July, Germaine Maillet, St-Junien, housewife, age 33 (spouse of Georges Maillet). —5 July, Maurice Verger, Vayres, farmer, age 36. —5 July, Frangoise Armagnac, bride of Pdnicaut, Exideuil, age 26 (grandniece of Sadi Carnot, President of the Republic who was assassinated in 1894; arrested on 4 July by Nathan Lind- ner after the marriage mass; shot in her wedding dress). —6 July, 1 unknown male (body rolled up in a blanket at the foot of the prisoners tower of the Pressac chäteau). —6 July, 1 unknown male (head smashed in; same place; con- fusion with the above?). — 7 July, Simeon Israel, Manot, railroad employee, age 42. A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 9 -9 July, Mme Lävöque, St-Laurent-de-C6ris, housewife, age 65 (“the nurse”). —10 July, Auguste Siber t, Loubert, livestock dealer, age 29. -11 July, Henri Malga, Rochechouart, workingman, age 43. —12 July, Raoul Chevalier (*), Maisonnais, justice of the peace, age 60. -12 July, Maurice Aubert, Montemboeuf, notary, age 31. -12 July, Jacques de Maillard, Chassenon, landowner, age 50. —13 July, Jean Jonquet, Ötagnac, restaurateur, age 63. — 13 July, Frangois Destempes, Chabanais, town clerk, age 49 (death by torture). —13 July, Läonard, alias Adrien, Saumon (*), Maisonnais, maker of sabots (former mayor with socialist leaningsj. —16 July, 1 unknown male (body rolled in a blanket, in back of the chäteau farmhouse). —16 July, Pierre Carlin (*), Brigueil, miller of oil, age 25 (was a member of the Resistance network “Action R3”). — 16 July, Mme. Noel, St-Junien, nurse, age 35. — 16 July, Eugöne Ecoupeau, Magnac-sur-Touvre, fitter, age 21. — 18 July, Mme. Baatsch, Exideuil, housewife, age 45. —18 July, Henri Fahre, Roumazibres, radio electrician, age 42. —18 July, 1 unknown young girl, came from Rouen. — 18 July, Pierre Sauviat, Chabanais, retired gendarmerie war- rant officer, age 61. — 18 July, Sylvain Vignaud, Confolens, grain inspector, age 58. —20 July, Gaston Devoyon, Chabanais, carpenter, age 50. —20 July, Amädäe Devoyon, Chabanais, carpenter, age 45 (brother of Gaston Devoyon). —21 July, Ferdinand Gisson, Chabanais, seed merchant, age 60 (deputy mayor; killed). —24 July, Jean Codet-Boisse, Oradour-sur-Vayres, lumber worker, age 28. —24 July, Pierre Sadry, Rochechouart, pastry cook, age 60. —24 July, Mme. Soury-Lavergne, Rochechouart, housewife, age 57 (husband executed on 26 June). —27 July, Angel Besson, Roussines, bus driver, age 24. —27 July, Mme. Besson, Roussines, housewife, age 22 (spouse 10 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW of Angel Besson; mother of two young children; 7 months pregnant). —29 July, Eugöne Pannier, Manot, landowner, age 54. —30 July, Jacques Labuze, St-Junien, medical studies com- pleted, age 30. —30 July, Mme. Lagarde, lÜtagnac, housewife, age 24 (“la belle Manou”). —31 July, Yvon B., Limoges (?), age 17 (had denounced a ma- quis?). —4 August, Paul Corbiat, Montemboeuf, farmer-landholder, age 77. —4 August, Jacques Londeix, native of Bordeaux, schoolboy, age 16. —6 August, Gustave Nicolas, Chasseneuil, tradesman, age 47. — 11 August, 1 unknown male (found 150 meters east of the cemetery of Vayres). — 11 August, Renä Barbier (*), Alloue, working landowner, age 37. — 11 August, Aloyse Fritz, Rochechouart, gendarmerie war- rant officer, age 43. — 11 August, Pierre Marot, Rochechouart, gendarmerie war- rant officer, age 34. — 11 August, Jearme Lamothe, Chantilly (Oise), stenographer- typist, age 19. —11 August, Jean Paillard, Rochechouart, commercial traveler, age 45. —11 August, Georges Remondet, Confolens, lieutenant retired on pension, age 54. II. Executed In Her Wedding Gown DOCUMENT: Death Certificate Mayoralty of Saint-Quentin (Charente): Madame PENICAIJT, nöe Frangoise Charlotte Solange ARMAGNAC, on 23 Feb 18 at Paris, residing in Bel Air, Com¬ mune of Exideuil/s/Vienne (Charente), farmer, age 26. Deceased at Pressac, Commune of Exideuil/s/Vienne, on 5 July 44 at 9 p.m. Frangoise Armagnac was the daughter of Jean Marie Armagnac, a Senate official, and of Ernestine Marie Carnot, niece of Sadi Carnot. Through her mother, she was thus the grandniece of the President of the Republic, who, in 1894, had A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 11 been assassinated at Lyon by the anarchist Caserio. Along the Angouläme-Limoges main road, in the proximity of Chabanais but within the territory of the commune of Exi- deuil, Frangoise Armagnac lived with her mother in a Basque- style chalet in the locality of Bel Air. Her uncle, Jean Carnot, resided in a house of imposing size situated in the locality of Savignac. 2 This house, where Frangoise and her sister Cöcile, coming from Paris, used to spend their vacations, is impro- perly designated with the term “chäteau” by certain inhabit- ants of the region, as well as by the ordinance map. Frangoise Armagnac, contrary to the legend, was not the mistress of a chäteau. The narrative you are going to read owes essentially to the oral testimony of her husband and a written account left by her mother. The narrative is followed by sworn Statements. The Story The religious wedding of Frangoise Armagnac and Georges Pönicaut was celebrated at eleven o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, 4 July 1944, at the church of St-Pierre-äs-Liens de Chabanais. The sparse (?) audience included the Girl Scouts and Jeannettes with whom Frangoise busied herseif, and whose leader she was. A sermon was delivered by M. Jagueneau, the Catholic priest and dean of Chabanais; less than a month previously, the latter had had dealings with the maquis in connection with the burial of “the Spaniard” 3 ; on the afternoon of that same 4 July, he would be slapped in the face by a member of the maquis. The ceremony went off without incident. To be sure, it seems that disturbing rumors had circulated the night before, but the couple had known nothing of these. Frangoise wore a white silk dress, long and full, as well as a diadem of white roses, a white mantilla and her sister Cöcile’s white burnoose. It was in this wedding outfit, give or take a few items, that she was to be shot to death some thirty hours after the wedding. The wedding breakfast was planned for the chalet of Bel Air. Instead of taking the main road, the couple and some of the guests took a shortcut across the fields. About 300 meters before reaching the chalet, a very considerable group of maquisards (members of the maquis) appeared and began a peremptory questioning of the entire wedding party. To believe the adjudant [noncommissioned officer= warrant of- ficer junior grade], all this was a prelude to a simple search; he 12 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW even added that it would be no more than “a call on the family of a former President of the Republic.” A dozen of the wedding guests were placed under close watch in an outbuilding of the chalet. The Catholic dean was put in a separate room, and it was there that he would be slap- ped. The photographer, M. Aubineau, was isolated in another room; he was suspected of having photographed the maquisards the day they occupied Chabanais. 4 Maquisards seated themselves at the table set up in the main room of the chalet and divided up the wedding breakfast. In the middle of the table there were blue hydrangeas that had been gathered from outside the house, and two bouquets of white roses. The maquis distributed cakes and chocolates to the Scouts and Jeannettes. Around three o’clock in the afternoon the other participants in the wedding would be allowed the cold remains of the meal. At about five o’clock, the guests invited to the wedding feast arrived and in turn were searched. At six o’clock the bride and groom were taken and put into a truck along with the photo¬ grapher and the Catholic dean. As Frangoise had to stand in the truck, one of the maquis had gone to find a chair for her from the drawing room. And thus began what, leaning towards her husband, she called “our honeymoon trip.” It is unlikely that the couple at that moment really feit themselves in danger. No one attempted anything in their behalf, no doubt precisely because no one feared any fatal consequence. No one save the very young housemaid, Louise V., who declared to Anna, the cook, that Frangoise was going to be shot. 5 She said she was a nervous wreck, and that very even- ing, taking her belongings, she quit the premises. She would not be seen again. 6 She had guided the maquis during their search, and it was she who had led them to an etagere where there was a little wooden shoe: in this little shoe an insignia of the Militia was discovered. That at least seems evident from what Mme. Armagnac, Frangoise’s mother, would hear at the Vayres camp where, a few days later, she in her turn would be interned by the maquisards. The chalet was stripped of all objects of value. Yet the adj u- tant had declared that “not one sou, not one Centime would be taken”; that “the maquis had no need of anything.” “Besides,” he had specifically stated, “look at how we’re dressed!” But it is probable that on discovering, at the time of the search, seem- A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 13 ingly damning evidence against Frangoise, the Order had been given to “salvage” everything. With the arrival of 126 men (on foot) and two trucks, the maquisards, taking one of the trucks, carried off the silverware, the clocks and watches, the family jeweis, money, the brandy and the wine, plates and dishes and all the food. In particular, they took M. Armagnac’s watch (he had died in 1942) and the contents of the purses of the two children, ages six and eight, who had come to spend their vacation at Bel Air. They left the purses. 7 As for the truck carrying away the prisoners, it traversed Grenord and reached the Pressac chäteau, near Saint-Quentin-sur- Charente. The guards were singing. One of them broke into the “Internationale,” but his comrades interrupted him, remin- ding him that “it is forbidden.” The arrival at the chäteau was tumultuous. The maquisards were abusive, ready to beat the prisoners black and blue, but “Bernard” came out of the chäteau, a club (?) in his hand, and warned: Tll clobber the first one who touches them.” The prisoners were placed together in a room on the left of the second story that would serve as their prison. Meanwhile, Frangoise was conducted to the infirmary on the right. Her Identification papers, her bracelet, her watch, and her engage- ment ring were taken from her. The famed “nurse”—the former maidservant of Mme. Vissol, living in Chabanais—would be seen, after these events, wearing that engagement ring on her finger. Frangoise and her husband underwent two joint interroga- tions in the office of Raoux, called “Gandhi,” who functioned at one and the same time as examining magistrate, public pro- secutor and judge. A diary belonging to Frangoise was ex- amined closely: that for 1943, in which she told of having at- tended the first meetings of the Militia (four meetings in all, it seems). “This is sufficient,” Raoux is supposed to have said, showing her the insignia of the Militia. There were about fifteen men locked up in the prison of the Pressac chäteau. The new arrivals were given nothing to eat; no doubt they had arrived too late. The following day, Wednesday, 5 July, still nothing to eat. Georges Pdnicaut was put to work on the charcoal detail. Frangoise Pdnicaut sewed forage caps in the infirmary. She asked for and obtained a piece of bread. In between their forced labor, the couple suc- ceeded in exchanging a few words. That morning Frangoise 14 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW was summoned twice for questioning. She would confide to her husband that they were forever asking her the same ques- tions and that she was sure she would be condemned. At mor- ning’s end, she was told that her execution was for that same evening, whereas Georges would have to be released. Georges obtained an audience with “Bernard.” He implored him to take his life in exchange for that of his young wife. Far from yielding, “Bernard” enumerated for him the exhibits which proved Frangoise’s guilt: her Militia insignia, her diary for 1943, her signed deposition. He even read him an excerpt from the diary in which her joining the Militia was related. Thereupon Georges mentioned the page of the diary where Frangoise made reference to the certified letter by which she had sent the Militia her resignation. At once “Bernard” resum- ed reading the diary; coming to the date of 7 August 1943, he tore out the page and declared to Georges Pdnicaut: “The evidence that interests us, we keep; that which does not in- terest us, we have the duty to disregard.” 8 And he added that the execution would not be delayed “by one hour or by one minute.” At 9 o’clock in the evening, Frangoise was executed right at the top of the meadow called “The York,” behind a thicket and close to a drained fishpond. 9 Before leaving for the place of the execution, she was granted five minutes to wait for her hus¬ band, who was not yet back from his fatigue duty. Upon his return, she rushed to him, and they were able to exchange a few words. To the firing squad she is supposed to have declared: “Kill me. I entrüst my soul to God.” We have several witnesses to her sangfroid. The coup de gräce was supposedly fired by “the nurse.” They refused to show Georges the place where his wife’s body had been thrown, and he asked for the return of the engagement ring in vain. Exhumation could not be effected until five months later, in the mud, on 2 December 1944. Today, Frangoise Pönicaut has her grave in the cemetery of Chabanais. The inscription on the gravestone reads: “Here lies Frangoise Armagnac, wife of Pönicaut, 1918-1944.” To her left, the grave of her father bears the words: “Jean Armagnac, born in Paris, deceased at Bel Air, 1872-1942.” On her right is the grave of her mother, where one may read: “Marie Armagnac, n6e Carnot, 1877-1969.” A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 15 The Testimonies Testimony ofCöcile Armagnac, elder sister of the slain woman: At the time of the events in question, I was an ambulance nurse in Cherbourg. Because of the battle of Normandy, the town was cut off from the rest of France. I only learned of the marriage and the death of my sister around the end of the month of August 1944, and then only by chance (someone who came from Paris and was passing through Cherbourg had, on hearing my name, offered me his condolences...}. We didn’t do anything political, my sister and I. We were both against the occupying forces. The Militia seemed at the time it was created, in 1943, like a sort of civil gendarmerie charged with maintaining Order in the country. In an area like ours, where there were, so to speak, no Germans in 1943, the Militia was not considered pro-German, as it later came to be, especially as viewed from Paris or the areas where the members of the Militia and the Germans took part in the same operations of “maintaining order.” Besides, Frangoise was go- ing to go in for the social work of the Militia, that is to say first- aid, packages for the prisoners of war, day nurseries for children. She went, I believe, to only four meetings of the Militia, after which she sent in her resignation as early as 7 August 1943. I returned to Bel Air on 9 October 1944, that is to say three months after the death of my sister. The area had already been liberated for two months. People were turning their backs on my mother. The tenants were no longer paying her rent. I learned, moreover, that after the Chabanais disaster of 1 August 1944, people had come to Bel Air and commandeered wood and furniture (beds, dressers, wardrobes) for the vic- tims. Among others, B., who was very well known for his Communist opinions, had come looking for furniture. Subse- quently we were to be given back only an ebony wardrobe and a mahogany dresser. I also learned that my mother had been taken away and imprisoned by the maquis. She was 67 years old and nearly blind. In a letter addressed to the assessor, she had solicited a reduction in taxes in view of the looting of Bel Air, in which all of her available cash had been taken from her. Her letter had been intercepted. She herseif had been arrested, just as the Chabanais tax collector had been. Raoux and other interrogators had tried in vain to make her retract the terms of the letter. Sure of being shot, she resisted them. They also tried 16 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW to extort a sum of money from her, as they had from a certain G., of Saint-Junien. She told them they had already taken everything from her. Ultimately the maquisards released her from the Vayres camp just as they were precipitously depart- ing it. My mother, cutting herseif a staff from the hedgerow, marched a good 20 kilometers to get back to Bel Air. Those events were the product of a troubled era. It wasn’t any prettier on the other side. In times like those, actions are often faster than thoughts, with excesses of all kinds as a result. And things leave their mark . . . Testimony of Robert du Maroussem, former commanding of- ficer of the local Militia: I remember that at the end of one of our Information brief- ings, Mlle. Armagnac told us: “You go too far in your attacks on the Jews and the Freemasons; they’re hunted like wild animals these days.” Testimony of Mme T., former domestic of the Pressac chäteau: When the truck arrived at the chäteau, the maquis, in order to mock her, cried: “Long live the bride!” She slept in a loft. They made her clean the toilets and sew clothing. Her dress was soiled. When she crossed the yard, they continued to cry: “Long live the bride!” A young fellow who was a member of the firing squad was impressed by her courage. It seems that she opened the front of her burnoose and told them: “Fire away!” Testimony of Nathan Lindner, instigator of the arrest: [In her written Statement, Mme. Armagnac names the “newspaper vendor Lannaire (sic), born in Warsaw and a refugee in Chabanais.” She adds that this man directed the looting of Bel Air and that he personally carried off “the genealogical tables of the Carnot family.” He supposedly boasted of the “Joli coup” he had pulled off and exclaimed: “Won’t they think I’m something after that!”—I managed to find Nathan Lindner on 14 May 1974. He was then living in the Halles quarter of Paris and had a newspaper stand at the corner of Tiquetonne and Montorgueil streets. Born in War¬ saw in July of 1902, he had been a corporal in the Foreign Legion (height: 1.59 m). Düring the war of 1939-1940, he had worked in Toulouse for Paris Soir; later, because of the Vichy racial laws, he had worked in Issoudun (Indre) for himself. He A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 17 finally went back to Chabanais, where he peddled newspapers for the Hachette Store run by Mme. Olivaux. Known by the nickname “Trottinette,” in the Resistance he used the pseudonym “Linard.”] I had to leave the Chabanais area in 1945 on account of those stories of the Liberation. The newspapers of the time, and especially L’Essor du Centre-Ouest, had violently attacked me. A good many years later it was Historia that lit into me. In 1944, at Chabanais, I took delivery of the newspapers at the railroad Station and brought them to the Olivaux störe. I had a pushcart fitted out with bookshelves. That’s why they nicknamed me “Trottinette” [scooter]. One day I hear her say something like: “These young people who refuse the S.T.O. [Service du Travail Obligatoire = Compulsory Work Service] should be doused with gasoline and set on fire.” Other people could confirm that for you. 10 One of my newspapers was Signal, the only review comparable to today’s Match. 11 I was the one who talked to Bernard about Frangoise Ar¬ magnac. I asked to take care of the search and the rest of it. Bernard gave me carte blanche. When the wedding party got to within 300 meters of the Armagnac property, I told them that we were members of the maquis and not looters, and I read an Order that said any man caught pillaging would be shot immediately. We set up the Operation on the same day as the wedding in the hope that we’d find other members of the Militia among the guests. In the course of the search we discovered appointment books, armbands, insignia, 12 a Militia membership card. 13 I took the bride to Raoux, who, provided with my written report, conducted the questioning and decided on the execution. What I did that day was perhaps not very pretty. I entered into history through the death of a descendant of Sadi Carnot. I’m not pleased about it. It had to be done at the time. I’m not a bloodthirsty person; feelings were running very high and peo¬ ple weren’t in any state to be reasoned with. But right now we have lots of people who are doing a lot of harm [now, in 1974]. They ought to have been executed at the time instead of being liberated and whitewashed. All these people besmirch and denigrate the Resistance. The witness appeared to me to be tormented by the “Armagnac Affair.” He does not regret having had the bride shot, but he deplores the vexations that ensued for him. He 18 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW says he was always a Communist and affirms that he was ex- pelled from the Party in 1945 for having wanted, contrary to instructions, to help the Spanish Reds arm themselves in order to liberate Spain from the yoke of Franco. Among those Reds, there was “Ramon.” Nathan Lindner is mad for history and painting; he paints under a pseudonym (Ainel, as in NJathan] LJindner])]. Testimony of Annie F., former “Wolf Cub” scoutmistress: Frangoise Armagnac was an idealist and an enthusiast, an ungainly girl, eccentric and sometimes careless in dress. Very much the churchgoer, she was brusque in manner; she was very peremptory, and perhaps timid at bottom. Politics didn’t interest her. Once, speaking to me about a movement, perhaps of the Militia’s social work or women’s movement, she told me that in an age like ours, you couldn’t remain indifferent, that this movement looked interesting and that one ought to be able to make oneself useful in it. Someone—was it her mother or was it perhaps myself—cautioned her and counseled her to get the advice of the Scouts at the national level. 14 On 4 July 1944, I witnessed the removal of the Armagnac family belongings in the maquisards’ truck. Children were playing on the slope of the meadow; it was the “Wolf Cubs” and the Girl Scouts. Testimony of Joseph L., former President of the Legion: At one moment, at Bel Air, young Valette, who was one of the maquisards, cried out: “The Germans are coming! There are the swastikas!”—It was Scout crosses. 15 Testimony of the widow of Lieutenant Robert, chief of opera- tions: [Lieutenant Robert’s true name was Jean P. He was a farmer at Les Fayards, a commune of Etagnac. His widow now (1974) has an antique shop in the Paris region, at Saint-Mandö.J My husband has just died of cancer at the age of 52. I met him after the Liberation. He was a Croupier then. For two seasons he directed the casino of L. I wasn’t familiär with the Resistance in Charente. I don’t come from there. My husband was always a Communist. He never talked, so to speak, about his memories of the maquis. He was sickened by the ill that was spoken of the Resistance. Basically, he really began to talk about the maquis only during the eight months in the hospital A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 19 preceding his death. He talked especially about “Gustave” (Bricout), and then he also spoke about a marquise or a countess that had been shot. He was there. I don’t remember well at all. Hadn’t that woman denounced some Frenchmen? My husband thought that it was just... I think that my hus- band didn’t agree all that much . . . 16 Testimony of G.B., of Montbron, alle ged witness to the execu- tion: Then the bride opened her veil and she called out just like that: “Long live Germany!” 17 Testimony of “Bernard,” commander of the “Pr essac maquis” [or maquis “Bernard”}: The bride? She was secretary of the Confolens Militia. She told me: “You’ve got the better of me, but if I had got the better of you, it would be no different.” Testimony of “Gaston,” Chauffeur /or “Bernard”: I took part in the arrest of the Carnot girl. A sensational girl. Facing the firing squad, she took hold of her wedding dress like this [gesture with both hands of baring the throat]. She never lowered her eyes. She was a che/ de centaine in the Militia. 19 The “Armagnac Affaif’ recounted by Robert Aron: [Histoire de l’Epuration, volume I, “Les Grandes fitudes Contemporaines,” Fayard, 664 pp., 1967, pp.566-567.] Perhaps the most detestable acts of violence are those which attack women. Near Limoges, a young woman of the region, Mlle. dArmagnac, whose family are proprietors of a chäteau, gets married in the church of her village: when she comes out on the parvis from the mass, maquisards kidnap her, her hus¬ band, the priest who married them, and a witness. At dawn the next day she is shot to death in her wedding gown. Motives given: first, she is a chatelaine; in the second place, she has taken care of militiamen. 20 Testimony of P. Clerfeuille, Professor at AngouJöme: You know, it is very difficult to do this work on the Repres¬ sion. People don’t want to talk. Let us take an example. I am positive that a woman was shot to death in her wedding gown. I went to Chabanais to investigate. I have an official card for doing this kind of work: I’m a corresponding member of the 20 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Committee on the History of the Second World War. We are under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister. Well, they refused to give me the name of the woman who was shot! I went away without a thing. And nevertheless I know that woman existed. [P. Clerfeuille is officially charged, among other labors, with research on the Repression at the Liberation (i.e., on the Purge) in the department of Charente. Our interview took place in 1974, say seven years after the publication of the Robert Aron book.] Two Documents 1. First Battalion, 2406th Company. 4 July 1944 Report of the Company Lieutenant 21 Today 7/4/44 we carried out a large-scale Operation at the Armagnac chäteau; place known as Petit Chevrier 22 concern- ing the possible arrest of militiamen. The Operation was com- pletely crowned with success because we arrested a militia- woman. This woman was getting married today and we came at the height of the wedding or at least at the arrival of the wedding party. We interrogated the guests one after the other, and I personally verified their identity and all the papers that were in their possession as well as their wallets. After verifica- tion, I detained a photographer named Aubinot 23 who alleged- ly photographed the maquis the day we occupied Chabanais. This requires a serious investigation at his domicile. I also detained the Priest of Chabanais who had prevented the bringing of flowers and wreaths and the flag into his church. 24 Afterwards we kept a close watch on the Bridegroom and the Bride for having answered us spitefully concerning the work we were doing at their home. Then we made a regula- tion search without damaging anything up to the moment when we found the evidence that the Bride is a Militiawoman. And so from that instant I all but gave the men a free hand for the removal of the provisions and other things worth our while. When everything was loaded, we had the prisoners get into the trucks and we returned without incident. I am satisfied with that expedition because I saw my men at work and I see that I can count on them. A Dry Chronide oft he Purge 21 As for my Adjutant-Chef [senior warrant officer] Linard, 25 1 can only thank him for having mounted this expedition and to have supervised it so well. Also, with the consent of the com- manding captain of the battalion, I shall request that he be named Company adjutant. In the evening a German airplane flew over the camp at a low altitude and on its way to Pressignac loosed a few bursts of machine-gun fire on civilians. Signed: Robert 2. First Battalion / Intelligence Service — Activity of the In¬ telligence Service — the 7th of July 1944. Closure of the inquiry into the Claims for money and real estate of the Armagnac family. 8 July 1944 Chief of Intelligence Service Signed: Gaudy 26 III. A List of Some Executions by the Maquis “Chabanne” (4 July to 17 August 1944) This maquis was started by three teachers from the second¬ ary school of Chasseneuil: Andrd Chabanne, Guy Pascaud and Lucette Nebout. These three were later joined by a career military man: Jean-Pierre Rogez. Andrd Chabanne died in an accident in 1963. His body rests in the crypt of the Memorial of the Chasseneuil Resistance beside the body of Bernard Lelay, head of the maquis “Bernard.” Guy Pascaud was ar- rested on 22 March 1944 and deported; upon his return from deportation, he embarked on a political career; he died some years ago. Lucette Nebout changed her name following a re- marriage; she is still living. After the war, Jean-Pierre Rogez had a brilliant military career; he was chief of staff of a general in command of the Paris garrison. On his retirement, he em¬ barked on a political career and became for a time the mayor of Malaucöne (Vaucluse). In the summary of his Service record are these four words: “tortured by the Gestapo.” The truth is that he was accidentally knocked off his motorbike by a Ger¬ man military vehicle. The maquis “Chabanne”—also called “Bir Hacheim, AS 18” —killed less but tortured more than the neighboring Com- munist maquis “Bernard.” The responsibility for its executions or tortures is also more diverse, divided between Andrö 22 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Chabanne and a few members of his entourage, in particular Frangois-Abraham Bernheim (of Colmar) and the former Saint-Cyr cadet, Jean-Pierre Rogez. Bernheim, of Jewish extraction—as was Raoux, his counterpart for the maquis “Bernard”—directed the Deuxidme Bureau (Security and Intelligence) until one day when Andrö Chabanne dismissed him, probably because he found him too severe. Whereas in the case of the victims of the Communist maquis almost all the bodies have been exhumed, the victims of the maquis “AS” (“Secret Army”) have not all been exhumed, and it is with full knowledge of the case that the authorities persist in refusing these exhumations. In the commune of Montem- boeuf, at the locality known as “the fox holes,” near the old Jayat mill, there are bodies which have never been claimed, and others which have been claimed but which the authorities do not want exhumed. The most astonishing of the executions carried out by the maquis “Chabanne” are those of the “Couture Seven” as well as that of Father Albert Heymös and his servant (see below, pp. 23-26). Couture (280 inhabitants in 1944) is a village situated north of Angoulßme, at the beginning of Charente poitevine, in the proximity of Mansies and Aunac. In June of 1944, a skirmish between German and Militia troops on one side and a small detachment of the maquis “Chabanne” (five persons in all) on the other resulted in one dead on the side of the maquis. The couple in charge of this little detachment were con- vinced that the inhabitants of Couture had denounced them, and Chabanne had ended up having seven persons of the village arrested: a father and son, another father and son, two brothers, and a seventh man. All were tortured, as a Military Justice report would establish after the war. All were executed at Cherves-Chatelars, near Montemboeuf, on 4 July 1944. The bodies were thrown into a cesspool. It would take their families 28 years of petitioning to obtain the exhumation of the bodies and their transfer in secret to the Couture cemetery. Proof of the denunciation was never produced. The presence of this small maquis was a matter of public knowledge in the region. In the period from 4 July to 17 August 1944, and limiting myself strictly to the region where it was then to be found, this maquis carried out around 50 executions. A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 23 Of the 50 cases, seven were women (one of them was 77 years old; she was shot along with her sister, 70 years of age, and the latter’s husband, age 73, a cripple on crutches). There were also four members of a single gypsy family (one of them a woman) among the victims, and three German soldiers, in- cluding one who tried to escape. —4 July, Louis-Andrd Michaud, age 34, warrant officer pilot on armistice leave, killed at Labon, commune of Chasseneuil. —4 July, seven farmers from Couture executed at Cherves, all after torture: Läon Barret, age 38, brother of the following. Eugöne Barret, age 32, brother of the preceding. Emilien Gachet, age 61, father of the following. Emile Gachet, age 23, son of the preceding. Fräddric Dumouss(e)aud, age 63, father of the following. Marcel Dumouss(e)aud, age 35, son of the preceding. Albäric Maindron, age 32. —5 July, ? Aurance, executed at Cherves. —5 July, unknown male, executed at Cherves. —6 July, Joseph Grangeaud, age 68, tradesman, executed at Cherves. —6 July, Üdouard Lombreuil, age 61, insurance broker, ex¬ ecuted at Cherves. —6 July, Andrö Abadie, age 33, former stevedore at Bordeaux (?), executed at Cherves. —10 July, Jean Veyret-Logerias, age 67, town clerk, executed at Cherves. —11 July, Father Albert Heymäs, died by torture, or following torture, at the Priory of Chatelars. — 13 or 14 July, Nicolas Becker, age 57, pharmacy assistant, executed at Chez-Fourt, commune of La Täche. — 16 July, Ern est Schuster, age 24, interpreter at the Komman¬ dantur [garrison headquarters] of La Rochefoucauld, tortured and executed at Cherves. —26 July, Jean Dalangon, age 49, watchmaker, executed at Cherves. —26 July, Jean Niedzella, age 24 (?), killed at Cherves. —29 July, then 30 July for the last of them, four itinerants of the same family (gypsy), killed near Saint-Claud: Jules Ritz, age 50. 24 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Pauline Jauzert, age 57. iZmile Ritz, age 22. Frangois Ritz, age 24. —end of July, three German soldiers were taken prisoner. The sergeant tried to escape; he was killed. His two comrades were fetched, and also killed. The marks of the bullets are still there on the exterior wall of the covered playground of the school at Cherves. The three dead bodies were thrown into a pond “chez Veyret”; they remained in the pond for at least ten years—with their feet sticking out. — 1 August, Josdphine Adam, age 29, servant of Father Heymös, executed at Cherves. —August, Marie-Germain Groulade, age 48, housewife, ex¬ ecuted at Cherves. The following executions took place at the “fox holes” near the old mill at Jayat, in the commune of Montemboeuf, where Jean-Pierre Rogez had his command post and where he had a “concentration camp” (its official designation) set up: —7 August, Maurice Launay, age 25, farm domestic; his wife (Mme. Horenstein, of Objat) did not succeed in obtaining ex- humation. —9 or 10 August, M Ile. Cldmence Choyer, age 65, retired school-teacher, no family; not exhumed. —10 August, Augustine Alexandrine Bossu, age 77, almost blind, sister-in-law of the following. — 10 August, Victor Maisonneuve, age 73, invalid needing two canes, husband of the following. —10 August, Juliette Henriette Maisonneuve, age 70, wife of the preceding. —11 August, Marie Brdni chot, age 46, tradeswoman. — 14 or 15 August, Joseph Schneider, age 25, interpreter at the Kommandantur of Champagne-Mouton, tortured; not ex¬ humed. —14 or 15 August, Paulette Marguerite Frangois, age 27, owner of a cafe; not exhumed. — 15 August, 6 or 7 or 9 Russian volunteers in the German ar- my were executed; no exhumations despite negotiations. —16 August, Raphael Gacon, age 18 (?), “half day-laborer, half sacristan”; not exhumed. A Dry Chronicle oft he Purge 25 — 17 August, Emmanuel Giraud, age 24, farm domestic; not ex- humed, despite the apparent request of a brother. —It might be well to add to this list the name of Octave Bourdy, age 53, a grocer, executed belatedly, on 6 December in terrify- ing circumstances at Saint-Claud. IV. Death of a Priest Under Torture Before the execution by the maquis “Chabanne” of the seven inhabitants of Couture, the curö of Saint-Front, Father Albert Heymös, went there and expressed his feelings in a form I have been unable to determine. As a priest serving several parishes, he was coming from celebrating Mass in one of them; and it was on the return journey, at Saint-Front, that he was presumably stopped, along with his servant, Josöphine, and taken by truck to Andrd Chabanne’s command post at Chatelars, an estate—“the Priory”— flanked by the remains of an abbey (not to be confused with “Le Logis du Chatelars,” which is a chäteau). It was his misfortune that Albert Heymös was a refugee from the East 27 and spoke with a strong German accent. He was born on 4 November 1901 at Kappelkinger, near Sarralbe, in Moselle. At Colmar, Frangois-Abraham Bernheim, still living, told me concerning him: Heymös, I knew him well in 1936 and then in 1939 at Altrippe (where he was the curö). I lived in his village. He spoke the patois of Lorraine, the worst of the German dialects: the “paexer”; originally it’s Luxemburgian (that dialect, it’s enough to sicken you). Heymös was a bit ponderous, a bit coarse. He was not unlikable but he had a bad PR. (I don’t know anything about his death.) I suppose he feil on his back when he was struck and presumably split open the back of his skull. I was the judge. There was no attorney. I made an impression because I didn’t shout. A man blanches and his eyes glitter, when you teil him he’s going to die. For some inhabitants of the Moselle region, the former curä of Altrippe was intelligent, a musician, a big talker with an irritating style. “If he had stayed in Lorraine, it would have been the Germans who’d have cut off his head.” M. was a member of the maquis and saw the truck arrive with the priest: “They didn’t set up the steps for him. That struck me. You have respect for a curö as you do for a teacher. He had his prayer book. He appealed to the good Lord for help 26 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW .. . But he confessed that he was a member of the Wehrmacht [sic].” M., of Chasseneuil, told me: “It wasn’t a pigsty they put him in, but a shed for sheep. They made him carry stones. A maquisard said to me: ‘This one will be good for making a beef stew tomorrow.’ He said that to me on a Thursday; well, Sun- day it was he, the maquisard, who had been killed. This curd was a noncom in the German army.” G., of Cherves, stated to me: “I saw him carrying very big stones and beaten by his guards. He had tears in his eyes.” Two brothers took a leading role in the torture. I found one of these brothers, a pastry cook, at Gond-Pontouvre (Angoul- äme). I told him the results of my investigation. He stated to me: “He was tortured very severely but there was neither a rope nor a hot iron. When I came back with X. to the pigsty where the curd was, we found him motionless. We lifted his eyelids. We verified his death and concluded that he must have committed suicide with a ring.” And, as I asked for an explanation of the ring, the man answered: “I refuse to say anything more about it to you. I won’t say any more about it unless Bonnot is willing to talk. See Bonnot.” This last, a well-known official of the maquis “Chabanne,” refused to give me any Information. The priest’s family refused to reply to my questions for fear of dealing with someone who was perhaps seeking, in the terms of a letter dated 2 June 1974, to “go along with the anti- clerical Propaganda of the age.” Albert Heymös died on or about 11 July 1944; he was 42 years old. His body was buried in the cemetery of Cherves- Chatelars. His name is graven in the stone: “Father Albert Heymds [sic]/1901-1944.” The bishopric of Metz did not desire exhumation and transfer of the body to Lorraine. The grave is totally neglected. His servant, Josdphine Adam, was executed on the Ist of August, together with another woman. At Chatelars I was often told she “cried a great deal.” They had af- flicted her with a placard reading: “Curä’s Wife.” Nowadays the children of Cherves-Chatelars and the region are nurtured on the hallowed history of the Resistance. A pla¬ que which indicated the dates of the birth and death of Andrö A Dry ChronicJe ofthe Purge 27 Chabanne has been replaced with another no longer indicat- ing the dates, giving the impression that the hero died in the war, whereas he died in an accident in 1963. Directly in front of the dwelling called “the Priory,” in which Father Albert Heymös was tortured to death, and where many other persons had been imprisoned or tortured or condemned to death, schoolchildren have planted a fir tree. A plaque reads: “Tree planted 3 September 78/ by the children of Cherves-Chatelars in memory of the maquis Bir Hacheim /AS 18/ which was formed in this place/ in September 1943.” In the schoolyard of the Cherves school there is a play- ground. On the playground’s exterior wall, along the road which leads from Cherves to Chasseneuil, there can still be clearly seen, more than forty years after the events, bullet marks: it was here that the three German soldiers were exe- cuted. Upon being informed of this execution, Andrö Chabanne flew into a rage. He remembered, he said, that, taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940, he had escaped and been recaptured; his life was spared. Nevertheless, ten years after the execution of the three Ger¬ mans, Andrö Chabanne had left their cadavers to lie in a near- by pond, “chez Veyret.” Neither the owners of the pond, nor the mayor of Cherves, nor the gendarmes dared intervene in Order that they be given a burial. Today ten or so bodies are still buried in the “foxholes” at the old Jayat mill, for exhuming them would mean exhuming a part of the truth in contradic- tion to the legend that grows stronger year by year. Even at Saint-Front, I interrogated a group of four women, the oldest of whom was a young child in 1944. I asked them what they knew about Father Heymös, the former curö of their village. The oldest one answered me: “That curö was no curö. The Germans put him there to keep an eye on us. He was there to spy.” Two of the other three women approved. Other people told me: “He wore a German uniform under his cassock”; or again, “A fine curö, he was! Under his cassock he wore the uniform of a captain in the SS.” It is not difficult these days to find historians of serious repute who peddle even worse nonsense than that. It may nonetheless be true that Albert Heymös had served in the Ger¬ man army in the course of the first World War, during the period when his native province was part of Germany. 28 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Notes 1. [The Milice (French: Milice frangaise ) was founded as an anti-maquis force by military hero (in both world wars) Jacques Darnand in January, 1943. —Ed.] 2. Pronounced Savignat, in conformity with the original spelling. A Century ago, a great many place-names of the region found themselves provided with the suffix -ac instead of the suffix -at. 3. A member of the maquis. 4. After the confiscation of his camera, valued at 60,000 francs [1944], he will have no choice but to join the Maquis. He will be killed in the Royan pocket. 5. Anna was to testify to this after the war, to the investigators of the Söcuritö militaire. 6. Louise V. is living today (1974) in Limoges, where she married a hairdresser. She has two daughters, one of whom is a teacher and the other an engineer (elsewhere than at Limoges). Her father was a Communist 7. After the war, investigations of the Söcurite militaire will establish facts of this sort. Cöcile Armagnac disclosed to us that it was out of concern not to excite bitter feelings that Madame Armagnac renounc- ed having the property returned to her (“. . . anyway, that would not have returned Frangoise to us”); as for the other property, the indemni- ty collected by Madame Armagnac seems to have been very modest. 8. The special Algiers legislation, like the appeals of the London Radio and in particular those of Maurice Schumann, sanctioned, it seems, this kind of distinction. 9. In 1944 France was on Central Europe time: 9 p.m. thus corresponded to 7 p.m. solar time. 10. The persons questioned, including those most hostile to the Militia, told us emphatically that Frangoise Armagnac seemed to them incapable of making any such remarks, either in substance or form. We state here that witness Lindner seemed to us subject to grave shortcomings on points other than just the “Armagnac Affair.” 11. This mention of Signal is astonishing. Even more astonishing is the comparison with Match (or Paris-Match). Signal was a weekly of very good quality but one that many French people refused to buy on account of its German and National Socialist character. Yet Nathan Lindner was selling it, or trying to seil it, in Chabanais. The sale of it was not compulsory, of course, any more than was its purchase. Frangoise Armagnac had forbidden the children she looked after to buy anything at all from “Trottinette,” who was guilty, in her eyes, of selling Signal as well as publications of a licentious nature. 12. In all probability these armbands and insignia were ... Guide insignia (with the exception of that found in the little wooden shoe). 13. A probable confusion with the insignia found in the little wooden shoe. A Dry Chronicle ofthe Purge 29 14. According to her sister Cäcile, Frangoise, receiving no response—the mail was operating under precarious conditions—made her decision without waiting any longer. 15. This cofifusion seems to have been produced elsewhere in France; see also the confusion between “cheftaine” and “chef de centaine”; that is to say, between a Scout rank and a rank in the Militia! 16. These two last phrases offer an example of the contradictions that we sometimes encountered in the course of our inquiry when a witness attempted to formulate a general judgment. 17. We relate this matter only to give the reader an idea of the conviction of certain witnesses. As was to be revealed later, G.B. was not present at that scene, despite his claim. 18. Frangoise Armagnac was never the secretary of the Militia of Con- folens. The sentiment the witness attributes to her is unlikely for some* one who had broken with the Militia by sending in her resignation eleven months previously. As for the extreme brevity of this testimony, it is due to the fact that at the time of our meeting with “Bernard” we had not yet gathered much information about the executions and, in particular, about this one. 19. “Gaston,” or Jean T. by his true name, nowadays lives near Saint- Victurnien (Haute-Vienne). Frangoise was not a chef de centaine but a cheftaine. The witness is confusing here a modest rank in the Girl Scouts with an important rank in the armed Militia! 20. The attentive reader will be able to point out half.a dozen errors in this summary of the affair. These errors -may be explained by the fact that Robert Aron, who is a generalist, could not devote himself to ex- haustive verification of each case. Some of the errors are perhaps also to be accounted for by the force of attraction of certain clichös or stereotypes that call for one another and give the story the stark simplicity and dramatic color that are to the taste of certain readers of novels: “acts of violence . . . detestable . . . descend upon women . . . young woman . . . Mlle d’Armagnac [sic]. . . family . . . proprietor . . . chäteau . . . gets married . . . church. . . her village . . . coming out of the mass . . . parvis . . . kidnapping . . .” In a context like that, we are not too much surprised to see the execution take place “the next day at dawn” (whereas, it will be remembered, Frangoise Armagnac, inter- rogated several times on the day following her arrest, was not ex- ecuted until nine o’clock p.m.). 21. We are correcting the accentuation, but not the spelling or the punc- tuation of this document, every phrase of which would merit an atten¬ tive reading. 22. In fact, it was not Petit Chevrier but Bel Air. 23. The correct spelling is Aubineau. 24. For the burial of the “Spaniard,” the two Devoyon brothers, of Chabanais, had made a coffin for him that was considered too short; they were both executed. 30 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW 25. Pseudonym of Nathan Lindner. 26. Cöcile Armagnac, to whom we showed this document in 1975, deems it suspect. She cannot imagine that her mother could put forward a claim of that kind within two or three days after the arrest of Frangoise and the “removal” of Bel Air. 27. [Meant is the French East, i.e. the regions of Alsace and Lorraine, which were ceded to Germany in 1871, and re-annexed by France in 1918. They changed hands again during the Second World War. —Ed.] Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary Published here for the first time in English is the postwar prison “diary” of Japanese General and Premier Hideki Tojo. After an outstanding army career and Service as War Minister, Tojo served as Prime Minister from October 1941 to July 1944 — perhaps the most critical period in his countrj/s hi story. A few weeks öfter Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Tojo was arrested by American occupation forces and then put on trial for alle ged war crimes. By all accounts, he conducted himself with digni ty and composure during the proceedings. After being sentenced to death, he was executed in December 1948. Written while in prison, this "diary” consists of several essays, a reconstructed daily log of the critical period ofthe 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, and answers to anticipated prosecution questions. Composed in part as an aid in trial proceedings, and in part as an explanation for posterity, this memoir/justification by a central figure of twentieth Century hi story is a valuable historical document. Unknown to the world for more than forty years, these papers were first published in 1991 by historian Sanae Sato in the August and September issues of the Japanese monthly magazine Hoseki. This translation was jointly prepared by General Hideo Mi ki, retired professor of Japan’s National Defense Academy, and Henry Symington, an American specialist of Japanese economic and social affairs. This material has been very slightly edited, and clarifying information has been added in brackets . ***** I. Events Leading to the First Greater East Asian Outbreak I mmediately before the beginning of the Great East Asian war [which commenced on December 7, 1941], Japan was still engaged in the unfortunate Sino-Japanese War, which had already gone on for more than four years. Throughout that period, Japan had made honest efforts to keep the destruction of war from spreading and, based on the belief that all nations 32 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW of the world should find their places, had followed a policy designed to restore an expeditious peace between Japan and China. Japan was ensuring the stability of East Asia wbile con- tributing to world peace. Nevertheless, China was unfor- tunately unable to understand Japan’s real position, and it is greatly to be regretted that the Sino-Japanese War became one of long duration. Clearly, this Sino-Japanese War of more than four years was a considerable bürden on Japan’s national power and an obstacle to the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. From the point of the view of the nation’s power, it was obvious that while we were fighting the Sino-Japanese war, every effort was to be made to avoid adding to our enemies and opening additional fronts. Naturally, this was the view of those who then held positions of responsibility. In the past, the theory had been: Advance towards the north while defending the south, or advance to the south while defending the north. However, as the Sino-Japanese War drag- ged on, the only objectives that bore consideration were: 1) a swift peace between Japan and China; 2) the maintenance of international peace; and 3) the restoration of national power. It was for this reason that Japan: 1) attempted to establish peace with China through negotiations, sometimes through American mediation; 2) strengthened the Russo-Japanese Neutrality Treaty [April 1941] in the hope of avoiding war with the Soviet Union; and 3) tried as much as possible to use diplomatic means to respond to signs that relations with the United States were worsening, even though in so doing it was necessary for Japan to endure things that were unendurable. Despite Japan’s desires and efforts, unfortunate differences in the ways that Japan, England, the United States, and China understood circumstances, together with misunderstandings of attitudes, made it impossible for the parties to agree. Up un- til the very end, these were important reasons for the outbreak of war, and from Japan’s point of view, this is a matter of great regret. Thus, England and the United States supported the Chungk- ing [Chinese] government [of Chiang Kai-Shek] in every way, obstructed the peace between Japan and China that Japan desired, and thwarted Japan’s efforts towards East Asian stability. Düring this period, in July 1939, the United States suddenly gave notice of the abrogation of the treaty of com- Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 33 Prime Minister Hideki Tojo merce [signed in 1911, its termination restricted the importa- tion of essential raw materials] thereby threatening the ex- istence of the Japanese people. At present, looking back coolly upon the past, I think that both nations have much to reflect upon. 1. Both China and Japan should have emptied their hearts of ill-will, calmly explained their true positions to each other, and reflecting deeply on the fact that they were the corner stones of stability in East Asia, should have more bravely followed the path of direct peace negotiations. 34 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW 2. Likewise, in dealing with the China problem, the British and American side, which had particularly strong interests in China, should have based its judgments about the origins of the problem on direct observation of the actual circumstances at the time. Moreover, both sides should have considered the point of view and survival of the one billion people of East Asia, who were awakening to world development. Rather than be trapped in the narrow-minded maintenance of old power structures, it was necessary that both sides deliberate together, work harmoniously, and take a broader view of mutual prosperity, Cooperation, and the establishment of stability in East Asia. Note 1. As for the China Incident [the alleged attack by Chinese troops at the Marco Polo bridge near Peking on July 7, 1937, which triggered the Sino-Japanese War] and the pro¬ blem of whether or not it was possible for Japanese forces to withdraw from China, before concluding for formalist reasons that this was a simple invasion, it is necessary to consider the deeper origins: the exclusion and insult of Japan throughout the entire Chinese region, boycotts of Japanese goods, the in- fringement of rights and revenues, and violence against resi¬ dent Japanese. The [Western] powers have had similar ex- periences with China, such as the exclusion of foreigners in 1899 and the anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion [1899-1901]. Note 2. All peoples are created by God and have the same rights and freedoms to survive on earth together according to law. It goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars be- tween nations result. Furthermore, in the period when they awoke to world development, the one billion people of East Asia had greater demands to make with respect to their sur¬ vival because of economic development and unusual in- creases in population. I believe that it is in East Asia where these demands must be met. Of course, the peoples of East Asia have a natural Obligation to be grateful for the sacrifice and efforts of the European powers and America in leading the peoples of East Asia to their present circumstances, and they should respect the ex- isting rights and Privileges of those powers. The stability of East Asia can be hoped for only if both sides understand and appreciate the other’s position and have the magnanimity to adjust to circumstances. Moreover, this is part of the obliga- Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 35 tion towards East Asia that the great powers have as part of their fundamental responsibility for ensuring world peace. 3. With respect to the above and considering the case of Japan, recourse to arms has a profound relation to national policy and bears the following considerations: before resorting to military action, it should be strongly deterred at the ap- propriate time by diplomatic means if necessary. Unnecessary escalation is to be prevented by diplomatic power, and all ef- forts should be made to keep operations from interfering with policy. (Explanation 1) On this matter, in the Japanese System [of the 1930s and 1940s] there are many aspects that relate to the independence of the high command. Actions of the high com- mand are not, as in other nations, included in the national government, but are outside and independent of the nation’s constitutional government, and it is natural that they should brook no interference. Consequently, these matters are dif¬ ferent from those on which the Interior Minister assists the Emperor. In actions relating to the high command, the Chiefs of Staff of the Imperial General Headquarters, that is to say, the Army Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations, have a responsibility that is separate from that of the cabinet, and they take independent responsibility for the assistance they provide the Emperor. According to our current System, in matters pertaining to both sides, this is the role of the Army and Navy ministers. Consequently, once operations have begun, they are largely conducted according to the independent will of the high com¬ mand. Frequently, the national government finds that it has no choice but to make the best of things or simply submit in silence. In time of war, especially, these conditions become even more extreme because the Imperial General Head¬ quarters has primary control over conduct of the war, and its word carries much weight. Even military ministers have no more than a certain amount of control. It is customary that they have the right and the power to participate, from a political and military point of view, in the planning of actual operations. It is obvious that in purely military matters, it is absolutely necessary that operations be energetically executed, and that military objectives be achieved quickly without any political restrictions. However, unanticipated ill results may ensue 36 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW when there are delicate policy considerations or when there is an important diplomatic connection. This is to be expected in Contemporary warfare because it is often the case that the suc- cess or failure of operations is instantly reflected in world con- ditions. It is for this reason that relations between the national government and the [military] high command must be har- monized from time to time. This is something to be much reflected upon in the future. In fact, past cabinets have set up regulär meetings with the high command and tried to har- monize relations, but such bodies had no formal respon- sibilities (under the current Constitution, each minister counsels and assists the Emperor individually, so organiza- tions of this kind cannot be set up). Furthermore, they were not actually involved in the conduct of operations so their ef- fect was not great. In later years, they were formalized as Meetings of Chief Executives [Liaison Conference], but that probably did not make much difference. This is suggested by the fact that although at that time the Prime Minister attended meetings at the Imperial General Headquarters, it is my recollection that he was not to be involved in the conduct of operations. (Explanation 2) From around the time of the February 26 in- cident of 1936 [when an insurgent group of army officers at- tempted a coup in Tokyo], there appeared in the military trends towards subordinate policy-making (subordinates would ignore the wishes of their superiors) and staff-level con- trol of government (staff officers would seize control, ignoring the ministers and director-generals). These trends were par- ticularly apparent in the army. In that manner, there was a tendency for decisions, entirely contrary to national policy or to top military policy, to be made according to the limited understanding of lower-ranking men, and this, without the knowledge of their superiors. This, too, hindered the smooth Operation of national government. Half of the reason for this was shortcomings in the instruc- tion on staff officer attitude at the War College and deteriora- tion within the military of the psychological and formal feeling of Subordination and assistance to superiors. There remains, however, the fact that there had been a loss of ardor and en- thusiasm in the spirit of command at the higher levels. There was an absence of strong leadership and initiative, and a Tojo with his family tendency to think that given the choice, the best course of ac- tion was to do nothing. After I became Army Minister [in July 1940], His Majesty [the Emperor] told me what he had said to the Army Minister at that time, General Terauchi, immediately after the February 26 incident, namely, that His Majesty was very worried about these matters. After becoming minister, I tried to make im- provements. As it happened, at the time troops were dispatch- ed to French Indochina, misbehavior of that kind was detected and those involved — from top to bottom —were firm- ly disciplined. Later, I worked from time to time to counter those tendencies, but left Office before improvements were complete. As is the case with civilian bureaucrats, the reasons for the abuses committed by lower-ranking bureaucrats are different, but they are the source of the sclerotic manner in which Japan executes policy. (Explanation 3) For a long time, we have heard about military factions. Also, we have heard for a long time that the armed forces were high-handed, and recently this idea has 38 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW been particularly widespread. There were many things in the past about which the military should reappraise its own behavior. Nevertheless, there is something that must be said about military factions. [A reference to the so-called “Control” and “Imperial Way” factions within the Japanese military.] Today, it is an error to think that there are factions in the military. A soldier holds his rank for life, but his authority begins only when his position is conferred upon him by the Emperor. With this authority comes the right to influence the high command or, according to his position, the execution of government policy. However, as soon as a man leaves the Ser¬ vice, even if he had been a general, his authority ceases and he no longer has the power even to adjust the rank of a second lieutenant. If such power were to continue, that would mean the creation within the military of an individual faction, and it would be impermissible. This has always been the case in Japan, and explains why there are no factions in the military. As for whether or not the military has been high-handed, it is not as though there are no reasons for thinking this is so. This is something that requires self-examination. However, I think it possible that much of the public criticism about high-handedness arose from the power of ex¬ ecution born of the command/obedience relationship and strength that come from the military’s Organization, especially from the importance placed on timing that arises from the re- quirements of war. I believe that this is what produced the consequences of Explanations 1 and 2 noted above, that is to say, those things that must be acknowledged as high- handedness and reflected upon as such. 4. Later, as operations against China followed natural opera¬ tional exigencies, the front was gradually expanded towards the south. In Order to put a quick end to the Sino-Japanese War, it was necessary first to strike a mortal blow against the Chungking forces [of Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek]. For this reason, it was necessary to strengthen the blockade of the Southeast China coast and to establish a large, new operations route deep into the South. 5. At about that time, in Order for Japan to sustain its own people, and because of the necessity of maintaining internal production, and in order to prosecute the Sino-Japanese War, we were faced with the necessity of obtaining such things as Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 39 rice and oil from the Southern islands, including French and Dutch Indochina. Particularly at the time when the United States broke off commercial relations with Japan, and the routes that depended on the United States were cut, the sur- vival of Japan was closely connected to whether or not peaceful commerce would be possible with these Southern areas. Consequently, Japan despatched ambassadors and con- ducted negotiations with these areas, but since they already had hostile feelings, nothing could be smoothly established. Furthermore, it had been clearly established by intelligence that French Indochina was an important, hidden supply route for [the Chinese forces headquartered in] Chungking. Conse¬ quently, it was necessary to cut this off, as part of the strengthening of our China operations. At the time, given the conditions in Europe, France was a friendly nation with a du- ty to cooperate with Japan. Therefore, the peaceful occupation of Indochina (September 1940) was carried out with the understanding of France. Thus, given the uncertainties in the Southern Pacific, and the necessity of putting a quick end to the Sino-Japanese War and establishing the cooperative rela¬ tions necessary for the survival of both nations, a portion of our military was gradually transferred to Southern French In¬ dochina. However, the British-American side called this a threat to their own territories, and in July 1941, together with Holland, ordered the freezing of assets and, in effect, commenced an economic blockade. This was a grave threat to the existence of Japan. In addition to this, the British-American side concentrated troops in Hawaii, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaya, and reinforc¬ ed their defenses. In this way, economic pressure was increas- ed just as the circle around Japan was tightened, and condi¬ tions arose that severely threatened the existence of Japan. (Note) The reasons for the occupation of French Indochina are as explained above, and in outline they were as follows: (1) To cut the enemy’s supply lines, to make it easier to launch aerial attacks, and to finalize the defenses of French In¬ dochina. This was done on the basis of a mutual defense pact. (2) Because commercial relations were smooth, trade was facilitated and relations of mutual benefit were established. The reasons for the occupation of Southern French In¬ dochina were essentially the same. However, conditions in the 40 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Pacific had worsened, and the need to end the Sino-Japanese War was feit more keenly than ever, and the conditions outlin- ed above were more severe. One of the reasons that Japan prepared for a passive na¬ tional defense was the worsening conditions in the Pacific, but this was not the main reason. 6. Since conditions were deteriorating, it was necessary to resolve them quickly. It was proposed that the Prime Minister of the time [Konoe Fumimaro] meet directly with the Presi¬ dent [of the United States] so that both could express their feel- ings and debate the general problems of the Pacific that had arisen between the two nations, so as to resolve these dangerous circumstances by political means. However, even though the United States agreed to this proposal in theory, they claimed that since it was an important matter, they preferred that such a meeting take place after differences of opinion had been resolved. Ultimately there was no such meeting, which was very unfortunate. The Japanese govern- ment had thought that a meeting would take place, and actual- ly selected an entourage and prepared a ship. 7. The hope for a peaceful solution by means of a summit meeting thus disappeared, but Japan, wishing to reach a solu¬ tion through diplomatic means, made several later proposals in response to the American position. However, the United States held firm to its initial position and would concede nothing. 8. Around November 20th [1941], conditions were on the verge of deteriorating even further. In Order to avoid a rupture of diplomatic relations, the government resisted strong pressures from the high command and made a proposal con- taining a number of concessions. As I recall, the proposals were the following: (1) Neither nation will send military forces to the Southern Pacific or to any part of South East Asia other than French In¬ dochina. (2) Should peace be established between Japan and China or in the Pacific region, all Japanese troops in French Indochina will be withdrawn. (3) If this agreement is conclud- ed, all Japanese troops in Southern French Indochina will be rotated to the north. (4) Commercial relations will be restored to their former state. Assurances will be given so that necessary materials can be obtained. 9. The United States did not agree to these proposals. Für- Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 41 thermore, it took back what it had previously said about acting as an intermediary in Sino-Japanese peace-making and refus- ed to perform this Service. In any case, if one looks at the circumstances immediately before the outbreak of the Great East Asian War from a Japanese point of view, one notes that the China Incident had continued for more than four years without solution. Efforts had been made to resolve the Situation by negotiations be- tween Japan and the United States, but this had failed. Further- more, in accordance with the requirements of operations, the theater of action of the Sino-Japanese War had moved ever more deeply towards the Southwest and international rela- tions continued to deteriorate. Düring this period, Japan’s peaceful commercial relations were successively obstructed, primarily by the American rup- ture of commercial relations, and this was a grave threat to the survival of Japan. In particular, the economic blockade by the various powers, led by the United States, inflicted a mortal blow to the survival of Japan. In connection with these multiple economic pressures, the ABCD [American-British-Chinese-Dutch] encirclement of Japan only drew tighter, and defenses in Hawaii, the Philip¬ pines, Singapore and Malaya were strengthened. The main American naval forces were shifted to the Pacific region and an American admiral made a strong declaration to the effect that if war were to break out between Japan and the United States, the Japanese navy could be sunk in a matter of weeks. Further, the British Prime Minister [Churchill] strongly declared his nation’s intention to join the fight on the side of the United States within 24 hours should war break out be¬ tween Japan and the United States. Japan therefore faced con- siderable military threats as well. Japan attempted to circumvent these dangerous cir¬ cumstances by diplomatic negotiation, and though Japan heaped concession upon concession, in the hope of finding a solution through mutual compromise, there was no progress because the United States would not retreat from its original Position. Finally, in the end, the United States repeated demands that, under the circumstances, Japan could not ac- cept: complete withdrawal of troops from China, repudiation of the Nanking government [formed under Japanese auspices and headed by Wang Ching-Wei, previously an important 42 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Chinese Nationalist leader], withdrawal from the Tripartite Pact [signed by Germany, Italy and Japan on September 27, 1940]. At this point, Japan lost all hope of reaching a resolu- tion through diplomatic negotiation. Since events had progressed as they had, it became clear that to continue in this manner was to lead the nation to disaster. With options thus foreclosed, in Order to protect and defend the nation and clear the obstacles that stood in its path, a decisive appeal to arms was made. (Explanation) War was decided upon at the Imperial Con¬ ference on December 1, 1941, and the shift to real operations was made at this point. However, even during the prepara- tions for action, we laid our plans in such a manner that should there be progress through diplomatic negotiation, we would be well prepared to cancel operations at the latest mo- ment that communication technology would have permitted. II. Concerning the Three Final Problems in Japanese-American Negotiations 1. The demand that Japanese troops be withdrawn completely from China. The causes of the China Incident were the exclusion and in- sult of Japan throughout China, the exclusion of Japanese goods, the persecution of Japanese residents in China, and the illegal violation of Japanese rights. As Japan had declared on such occasions, it was thought that the stability of East Asia depended on the close, mutual assistance and Cooperation be- tween China and Japan. That Japanese troops were stationed in China at the time was the result of unfortunate incidents and not something that Japan had originally desired. Conse- quently, there would have been no objection to the total withdrawal of troops should the causes be eliminated, and even with respect to the New China-Japan Treaty [March 30, 1940], discussions were pursued in this fashion. However, this required the elimination of those causes and would have been possible only on the basis of a guarantee to that effect. To withdraw troops without having obtained such guarantees would be only to repeat what had happened before (the troop withdrawal of 1932 after the Shanghai Incident), and would have caused unhappiness not only to Japan and China but would not have permitted the anticipation of stabili¬ ty in East Asia. On the British-American side the causes were Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 43 seen entirely to be a Japanese policy of invasion, and littie thought was given to actual circumstances. The Japanese policy, as was made clear at the time, was a non-expansionist policy, and it was not carried out as a matter of national intent. Looking back on that period from the present, there is some cause for self-examination. Even though the Sino-Japanese war was called a non-expansionist policy, it is clear that over a long period events expanded to a wide area. However, this was not the will of the nation but a result of the exigencies of operations, combined with the inability of a weak government to prevent it. The reasons for the latter lie in Japan’s internal Systems and traditions. Whether the fundamental cause was China’s illegal activities or Japan’s invasion may be something of a chicken-and-egg question. The reason was the failure of both Japan and China to understand each other and the inability of America and the European powers to sympathize, without prejudice, with the peoples of East Asia. 2. Repudiation of the Nanking government. The establishment of a national [Chinese] government [bas- ed in Nanking] with Wang Ching-wei as Premier was primari- ly a domestic question for the Republic of China. Of course, it must be conceded that it was born of the Stimulus of Japanese operations, but this is only a secondary reason and not the real reason. As opposed to the Chungking government, which con- tinued to exclude, insult and make war on Japan, the Wang Ching-wei government made overall peace its objective, and attempted to establish permanent peace in East Asia by means of Sino-Japanese mutual assistance. Therefore it was natural that Japan recognize this government and feel friendly towards it. (Note) When a new government is formed in any country, it is normal to recognize if it is in harmony with one’s own governmemt, and to show it good intentions. The [Western] powers have done the same in the course of the current war. However, to repudiate a government less than one year after having recognized it would cause the world to doubt a nation’s faith, and therefore it could not be done. The Nanking government essentially wished for overall peace in China. Consequently, it was thought that when overall peace had been achieved, questions about it would be resolved as a domestic matter. For that, it was necessary that 44 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW peace be concluded between Japan and China through ter- mination of the Sino-Japanese War. However, even with Japanese assistance, prospects were uncertain, so it was im- possible to resolve questions about the Nanking government. 3. The problem of repudiating the Tripartite Pact The Americans demanded that, “the governments of both parties agree not to interpret any agreements concluded with third countries in a way that contradicts the purpose of this agreement, which is the maintenance of peace in the Pacific region.” This clearly required that Japan breach the Tripartite Pact and that, consequently, was the same as requiring that Japan renounce the alliance. Essentially, the reason for concluding the Tripartite Pact was the fact that as a result of the Washington Conference [on naval armaments, in 1922], the Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been annulled, and world circumstances were such that Japan had withdrawn from the League of Nations [announced in 1933, effective in 1935] because the League would not recognize Japan’s claims. In order to end its isolation, alliance was sought with Germany and Italy, which found themselves in much the same circumstances. Furthermore, it was ex- pected that German power could be used to help in a solution to the China problem. However, if Japan were to accede to an American demand of this kind, it would indicate to the world the untrustworthiness of Japan. In the past, Japan fulfilled the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and at the request of B ritain, advanced all the way into the Mediterranean. As is clear from the fact that today, the souls of those fallen [Japanese] soldiers are still on the island of Malta, I believe the world will recognize that Japan is faithful to alliances. [A Japanese destroyer was sunk during the First World War while on escort duty in the Mediterranean, in fulfillment of Japan’s obligations to England under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.] Therefore, Japan could hardly take, for purposes of momentary gain, measures that would cause it permanently to lose the faith of the world. III. Circumstances Around the Time Of the Resignation of the Third Konoe Cabinet 1. My recollection is that it was at a time when, in accor- dance with the Imperial Policy Execution Outline adopted at Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 45 the Imperial Conference of September 6, 1941, the point had been reached when troops were moved into Southern French Indochina, and the Situation had become tense. It was something that had been determined as necessary in Order to carry out national policy and, as I recall, we were to be prepared both for war and for peace. 2. The US-Japan summit that Prime Minister Konoe had hoped for was rejected by the American side and did not take place. [The summit proposal was made on August 8.] There was a difference of opinion between Foreign Minister Toyoda and myself at a cabinet meeting around the 14th or 15th of October. I recall that the points of disagreement were as follows: (1) My opinion was that, as could be seen from a review of the US-Japan negotiations, Japan had striven for a solution by means of repeated concessions but the United States had stuck firmly to its initial positions and would make no conces¬ sions. (2) US approval could not be obtained for a diplomatic solu¬ tion by means of the US-Japan summit that the Prime Minister had hoped for. Furthermore, military and economic pressures were being stepped up day by day. Therefore, if one were to consider that there was virtually no possibility of success through the US-Japan negotiations, the military and economic pressures would only force Japan into further crisis if time were allowed to pass in vain. It was my position that we must recognize that it was impossible to meet Japan’s objectives as decided at the Imperial Conference, and that the time had come to make war on the U nited States (at the Imperial Conference [of September 6] the start of opera- tions had been set for mid-October). At the time, the high com- mand of the army advocated this (starting operations in mid- October). 3. As opposed to this, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister took the position that the obstacle to the negotiations was the withdrawal of Japanese troops from China, and that if concessions were made on this point, an agreement might not be impossible. As for troop withdrawal, that was a matter of great interest to the army, which was then conducting opera¬ tions. There were no objections to withdrawal as such. However, the reasons for the China Incident [the alleged at- tack by Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking 46 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW on July 7, 1937] had been the insults to Japan, and the anti- Japanese and illegal acts that had occurred in various parts of China. Therefore, if there was not to be a guarantee that those causes would be eliminated, the result would simply be a repetition of the same incidents. Furthermore, a withdrawal that did not achieve its purpose would demoralize the Japanese army to no avail, and it was feared that it would con- firm the American claim that the China Incident was provok- ed by a Japanese invasion. This was something to which the army could not agree. At the time, both the high command and the army in the field were firm on this from top to bottom; a withdrawal without guarantees was unthinkable. Thus, because of this difference of opinion, the cabinet resigned en masse. I might add that I had nothing whatsoever to do with Prime Minister Konoe’s memorandum to the throne on the resignation of his cabinet. 4. On October 18,1941,1 suddenly received a mandate from His Majesty to form a new cabinet. This was completely unex- pected, and when I was summoned to the Imperial Palace I thought I would be questioned on the army’s point of view. I took with me documents related only to this. (1) With respect to the formation of a cabinet, I received an Imperial mandate to return to blank paper [that is, with a free hand to direct national policy] and to make no missteps in policy. Therefore, considering that the national leadership responsibilities of the Prime Minister and Army Minister are different from each other, I was unswayed by the usual claims of the army. Though there were demands that negotiations be cut off and war begun, I was unmoved by them, arguing that so long as there was the slightest hope of a negotiated breakthrough, efforts should be continued. Since there was no desire on the part of the high command for a troop withdrawal from China, it was determined to seek a breakthrough in negotiations on the importanat matter that had caused a worsening of conditions, namely, the movement of Japanese troops into French Indochina. Even about this, there was considerable unhappiness in the high command. IV. Various Problems To Which The Pearl Harbor Attack is Central It is natural that I should bear entire responsibility for the war in general, and, needless to say, I am prepared to do so. Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 47 Consequently, now that the war has been lost, it is presumably necessary that I be judged so that the circumstances of the time can be clarified and the future peace of the world be assured. Therefore, with respect to my trial, it is my intention to speak frankly, according to my recollection, even though when the vanquished Stands before the victor, who has over him the power of life and death, he may be apt to toady and flatter. I mean to pay considerable attention to this in my ac- tions, and say to the end that what is true is true and what is false is false. To shade one’s words in flattery to the point of untruthfulness would falsify the trial and do incalculable harm to the nation, and great care must be taken to avoid this. As it happens, what has been called the speech of Fleet Ad¬ miral Nagano [Chief of the Naval Staff] with respect to the Pearl Harbor attack, was publicized on October 27th. Upon reading it, errors can be found in important matters, and I shall here write the true facts for the benefit of future genera- tions. 1. At the Imperial Conference on December 1, it was decid- ed to make war against England and the United States. How the procedures for the commencement of hostilities were to be carried out was deliberated upon at the Liaison Conference [a joint meeting of civilian and military personnel] where the agenda of the Imperial Conference was discussed. It was decided to proceed according to international treaty and con- firm the propriety of those actions while at the same time avoiding a too-early disclosure of our operations. Ambassador Nomura was to deliver a note by hand to the US State Depart¬ ment an hour and a half ahead of time, and the text, as well as the time of domestic notification [within Japan] were to be the responsibilities of the high command and of the foreign ministry. Therefore, I have thought to this day that the notification that Japan was breaking off diplomatic relations and was shifting to the unfettered conduct of its affairs [by declaring war] should have been under the responsibility of the Foreign Minister, communicated without fail. Of course, if there was failure in this matter, I have no argument with the view that, as Prime Minister, the responsibility is mine. The draft of the final rupture of diplomatic relations was written under the responsibility of the Foreign Minister of the time, and its contents were not reported to the Cabinet. 2. The Imperial Rescript on war, as can be seen from its first page, is directed primarily to the Japanese people. In Order 48 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW that this be made public as soon as possible after the com- mencement of war, approval from the Privy Council was ob- tained on the morning of the 9th. Though this was a doraestic matter, if these procedures had been followed in advance, it might have resulted in a too-early disclosure of operations. In any case, the way the Imperial Rescript was handled was not by any means intended as a means of concealing the attack on Pearl Harbor. On this matter, according to Fleet Admiral Nagano, it was understood that the declaration of war was to be made before the Start of the Pearl Harbor attack, before three in the morning, but this is a grave mistake. That is something that the government would not have known about. Three in the morning would mean getting Privy Seal approval in the middle of the night on Sunday, and the government would not have agreed to something so out of keeping with Japanese custom. Fleet Admiral Nagano has probably confus- ed this with the final official note [to the Americans]. It is most unbecoming that the Fleet Admiral should give the world an impression that is not only mistaken but suggests that Japan deliberately delayed the declaration of war. When reflecting upon it today, that the Pearl Harbor attack should have succeeded in achieving surprise seems a blessing from Heaven. It was clear that a great American fleet had been concentrated in Pearl Harbor, and we supposed that the state of alert would be very high. At the same time, since we were approaching with a great fleet of our own, there were grave doubts as to success. It is intolerable to think that on that occa- sion the government did something incorrect, and we had ab- solutely no intention of doing so. V. The Manchurian Incident And International Relations 1. After the first Great European War [of 1914-1918], our country made, as the basis of its foreign policy, the support of international understanding and the development of good relations with the powers. 2. At that time, in China, internal disorders had continued ever since the establishment of the Republic of China [in 1912]. Regional war lords proliferated and the internal disorders due to the struggle between the northern and Southern governments did not cease. Even after the beginning Hideki Tojo’s P rison Diary 49 of the Showa era [1926] and the establishment of the Na¬ tionalist government in Nanking with Chiang Kai-shek as Premier, its power was not sufficient to ensure an orderly na- tion. 3. After the Nine Power Treaty [of 1922] was concluded [at the Washington Conference], American East Asian policy became more vigorous, and at the same time the Communist movement gained strength on the Chinese mainland. Interna¬ tional relations, especially concerning Manchuria and Mongolia, became more complex and tense. 4. Despite this Situation, the Nationalist government as well as the [Chinese] war lords were taken in by the East Asian policies of such countries as Britain and the United States, and they did not understand our own spirit of justice and friend- ship. Furthermore, seeing that public opinion in our country was confused, that the political Situation was unstable, and that our foreign policy appeared also to be unstable, they in- sulted our nation, took policies opposed to Japan, and con- tinued on a national scale with their resistance to Japan, with such efforts as the boycott of Japanese products. 5. Especially in Manchuria, where our special Privileges had been secured, such war lords as Chang Tso-lin, who held real power in the region, failed to understand the true significance of the Russo-Japanese War, and lost their understanding and gratitude of what our country had done on the continent on behalf of the stability of East Asia. They called for the recovery of Port Arthur and Dairen, violated our interests, and took an arrogant attitude. After Chang Tso-lin died [in 1928, in an ex- plosion attributed to Japanese plotters] and the era of his son, Chang Hsueh-ling began, outrageous circumstances only worsened. (1) Plans were undertaken, with American finance, to build a new railroad that would encircle our South Manchurian Railway. (2) Farmers from the Korean peninsula were persecuted and attempts were made to expel them. Treaties were spurned, and our interests were destroyed. Further, our nation’s ex- istence was threatened, and there were continuous plots to disturb the peace of East Asia. Our government was patient, sometimes negotiating, sometimes trying to set up agreements. In return, China showed no sincerity whatsoever, and thus arose a mountain of unsolved problems, both great and small. 50 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW 6. On the night of September 18,1931, Chinese [?] troops oc- cupying Mukden blew up the South Manchuria Railway, and that became the Manchurian Incident. On March Ist, 1932, [the state of] Manchukuo was establish- ed [in northern China], and this fact was proclaimed both domestically and to the world. That proclamation meant that a peaceful and happy world was to be built by means of the rule of virtue, that peoples would cooperate and contribute to the peace of the East. On September 15, 1932, its independence was approved, and the Protocol between Japan and Manchukuo was signed. PART 2 Hideki Tojo’s Log Dec. 1 [1941] 0900 -1000 [hours] Extraordinary cabinet meeting (decision to go to war with U.S., Britain, Holland) 1130 - Imperial appointment ceremony [a ceremony in which the Emperor directly appoints someone to a position —not mentioned who was appointed to what] (discussion with Lord Kido [Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal] about the Imperial Con¬ ference) 1400 - Imperial Conference (with various officials as well as the participants of the Liaison Conference) Subject: Opening of war with U.S., Britain, Holland (EX 588) Minister explana- tion (EX2955, DD1892, Record 252-2P) In attendance: Sum- marized and abbreviated 1630 - Discussion with Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal about the Imperial Rescript on War [the official war proclamation]. Evening - Official Conference with Foreign Minister Official signature as Prime Minister Dec. 2 1. From 1000 throughout the morning - cabinet meeting 2. 1330 - private meeting with His Majesty (Hatta to be named Minister of Railroads, Ino to be named Minister of Agriculture) 3. 1500 - Imperial installation ceremony for Hatta and Ino. Dec. 3 1. From 1000 Liaison Conference, throughout the morning, at the palace. Afternoon - funeral of Princess Kaya Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 51 Dec. 4 1. Morning - Privy Council - Foreign Minister Togo, private 2. From 1400 Liaison Conference 3. 1600 - Foreign Minister Togo, private meeting with his ma- jesty Deliberations at the Liaison Conference of Dec. 4: 1. How to handle Manchukuo with respect to the opening of hostilities 2. How to handle Holland 3. The final notice to the United States The text was to be the responsibility of the Foreign Minister. It was agreed that notice was to be given before the Start of operations, and details were to be worked out between the Foreign Minister, the Army Chief of Staff,and the Chief of Naval Operations. Dec. 5 (Fri.) Sunny Official visit to Imperial War College. Luncheon with Emperor at the Imperial Army Headquarters 1630 - Report to Emperor on what was to be brought up in Cabinet meeting. Discussion with the Lord Keeper Privy Seal about the Imperial Rescript on War (Article 6). Dec. 6 (Sat.) Cloudy, later sunny 1000 - Liaison Conference at the Palace 1130 - Discussion with Lord Kido, Keeper of the Privy Seal, about Imperial Rescript on War 1500 - 1750 Liaison Conference 1) On negotiations with Ger- many 2) On instructions on when to begin negotiations with Thailand 3) On when to deliver the notice to the United States. Deliver by hand on the 7th at 3 a.m. (Japan time) 4) How to deal with the Nationalist government with respect to the open¬ ing of hostilities 5) Decision about the Imperial Rescript on War 6) Planning for the events of Dec. 8. Dec. 7 (Sun.) Sunny 1100 - Consultation with Emperor. Discussion with Secretary of the Cabinet Hoshino, and Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, about commencement of hostilities against US, Britain, and Holland. Dec. 8 (Mon.) Sunny 0100 - Visit from Foreign Minister Togo 52 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW 0430 - Report came of the success of the Pearl Harbor attack 0600 - Broadcast about entry into war 0715 - Cabinet meeting 0730 - Meeting of the Privy Council, Consultation with Emperor 1000 - End of Privy Council Meeting. Cabinet meeting (East wing of palace, Room 1) 1140 - Presentation of the Imperial Rescript on War 1200 - Broadcast of the Imperial Rescript on War 1300 - Central Cooperation meeting of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association 1400 - Army and Navy are given written Orders addressed to them directly by the Emperor. Addresses [by Tojo] to the Ar¬ my Ministry and the Interior Ministry. Paid reverence at Meiji Shrine and Yasukuni Shrine [to Japanese war dead] 1730 - Taped broadcast 1800 - Liaison Conference The Imperial Conference of December First Outline of explanations mode by Prime Minister Tojo 1. Acting in accordance with the decisions arrived at during the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5, the army and navy worked to complete their preparations while, at the same time, the government made every effort to adjust diplomatic relations with the United States. However, the latter effort resulted in failure and it is clear that Japan’s Claims cannot be met by diplomatic means. 2. We have entered a state that can no longer be tolerated, neither from the point of view of our nation’s power nor from an operational point of view. At the same time operational demands can no longer brook delays. 3. At this point, in order to resolve the current crisis, and in order to effect the self-preservation and self-defense of the na- tion, Japan has no choice but to make war upon the US, Bri- tain, and Holland. 4. The China Incident has already continued for more than four years, and henceforth we are about to enter another great war. I deeply regret that His Highness’ heart be inflicted with such a concern. Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 53 5. The morale of the officers and men of the army and navy is very high, the spirit of the nation is firm, and the people are prepared to act as one. With a spirit willing to face death, I have no doubt that they will triumph over every difficulty. 6.1 seek your [the Emperor’s] consideration of these matters. Explanation by the Foreign Minister «Shigenori Togo» 1. Explanation of the progress of US-Japan negotiations. Although over a period of seven months our nation has of- fered many compromises, they have held to their original Posi¬ tion and will concede nothing. 2. The Japan policy of the United States hinders the establishment of a new order in East Asia —which has been our unwavering policy from the beginning. 3. If we were to accede to American demands, our interna¬ tional stature would sink even lower than it was before the Manchurian Incident, and our existence might be imperiled. 4. Even if we continue negotiations further, there is virtually no possibility of our Claims being met. Explanation by the Chief of Naval Operations, representing the Combined Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Navy. 1. We have continued to prepare for operations. As soon as the order to commence operations should be given, we are prepared swiftly to commence operations according to plan. 2. The US, Britain, and Holland have strengthened their preparations for war, but I am convinced that operations can be carried out according to plans that are already established. 3. With respect to the Soviet Union, our diplomacy is coup- led with a state of high alert, but at present this does not appear to be a matter of great concern. 4. The martial spirit is high in both officers and men, and the spirit bums within them to serve the nation even unto death. Should Orders come, they are eager to do their duty bravely. Explanation by Interior Minister Tojo Concerning such things as changes in public opinion, the state of domestic control, the protection of foreigners and foreign diplomats, and special security forces. Efforts will be made so that the various policies for handling emergencies can be carried out without mishap. Explanation by the Finance Minister 1. So long as the necessary materials, facilities, and skilled 54 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW labor are available, our nation can be financially self- sufficient. 2. Even if Japan issues military or other currency with which to secure labor and materials overseas, it will be dif- ficult to maintain the value of such currency. We will attempt to establish a policy of local seif sufficiency [for Japanese troops stationed abroad] and we will limit the despatch of materials overseas to the least amount necessary to maintain local security and to meet the needs of local labor. We must not be overly concerned about such things as a deterioration in the value of local currency, and the turmoil in the local economy that would result. Explanation by the Agriculture Minister We must establish measures to bolster self-sufficiency in food stuffs, and develop a coordinated food policy for Japan, Manchuria, and China. We must make plans for an increase in livestock production and fish catches. If thoroughly carried out, these policies can probably ensure the minimum necessary food supply for the people for an extended period. Main points of questions by Chairman of the Privy Council Hara. 1. Will the current strengthening of the enemy’s military preparations be an obstacle to our operations? (Answer) Chief of Naval Operations: The United States has its forces in a proportion of four in the Atlantic and six in the Pacific. However, it is the British who are currently maneuvering [in a way to threaten us], though they will have no effect on our operations. 2. What tendency is seen in Thailand? What will we do if Thailand opposes us? (Answer) Prime Minister: That will be dealt with just before occupation. At present, things could go either way; Thailand is wavering. Japan would wish that they do as we ask while there is still peace. Just before we Start operations we intend to approach them and have our demands met. If we must resort to force, we will attempt to keep it to a minimum. 3. What measures will be taken in the case of aerial bom- bardment of the home islands? [no r eply written] Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 55 Chairman Hara’s final views 1. The American attitude is one that Japan can no longer tolerate and further negotiation is pointless. War cannot be avoided. 2. There are no doubts about early victory, but in the case of a long war, the support of the people’s will is necessary. 3. A long war cannot be avoided, but it is necessary that resolution be reached as quickly as possible. Therefore we must now begin thinking about how things are to be conclud- ed. 4. Decisions About the Formalities of Opening Hostilities. Notice of the Breaking Off of Negotiations. (1) Neither the date and time of the opening of hostilities nor the related formalities were discussed at the Imperial Con¬ ference on Dec. 1. (2) After the Imperial Conference on Dec. 1, at the Liaison Conference on Dec. 4, the following agreements were reached: 1. Foreign Minister Togo’s proposal for the final notice was approved. 2. It would be notice to the effect that on Dec. 8th (Japan time) Japan was breaking off diplomatic negotiations and con- sidered itself free to take unhampered action. 3. The above notification would take place in Washington. 4. The above notification would take place before attacking. 5. The time of delivery of the notice would be decided by consultation between the Foreign Minister and the Army and Navy Chiefs of Staff. The diplomatic handling of the final notice would be the responsibility of the Foreign Ministry. Note: According to Yamamoto’s testimony [Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander of the Combined Fleet]: 1. The final notice would be drafted by the Foreign Ministry based on what had been discussed at the Liaison Conference. Corrections to be made, based on discussions with army and navy personnel, and text to be proposed at the Dec. 4 Liaison Conference. Copies to be distributed to all in attendance. Final approval was secured. 2. The participants in the Liaison Conference firmly believ- ed that the last part clearly indicated the breaking of diplomatic relations and the opening of hostilities. The outline of the final notice was reported by the Foreign 56 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Ministry to the cabinet meeting on Dec. 5, and was approved by all present. Note: According to Yamamoto’s testimony, the decision about the formalities of commencing hostilities, that is to say, the decision to give notice in Washington that negotiations were being broken off, was made at a Liaison Conference on Dec. 2nd. The facts are correct, but there was no Liaison Con¬ ference on Dec. 2nd. It is my recollection that it was on Dec. 4. [According to General Miki, Tojo is referring here to Kumaichi Yamamoto, who was head of the US desk at the Foreign Ministry during the third Konoe cabinet.] On the Ultimatum to the United States 1. The final notice [the fourteen-part final Japanese reply to Secretary of State Hull’s proposals of November 26] that was ordered to be delivered by hand to the United States govern- ment at 1:00 p.m. on Dec. 7,1941 [Washington, DC, time] is as described in testimony (No. 1245) of this trial. 2. It was believed that in this notice the Japanese govern- ment was breaking off diplomatic negotiations and had deter- mined to make war. 3. The research as to whether this notice was in accordance with international law was undertaken with sufficient care by the Foreign Ministry, especially in the Treaty Section, and the Liaison Conference put its faith in that study. 4. I do not accept the prosecution’s claim that the text of the notice does not correspond to what the Hague treaty, in article three, calls a declaration of war with reasons included [a reference to the 1907 Hague Convention on the commence- ment of hostilities] 5. If one reads the 2400 characters of the entire document, particularly in light of circumstances at the time, it criticizes the American attitude, and makes it clear that Japan had no choice but to take military action. Therefore: (1) World peace must be built upon reality and an under- standing of the other’s position, and can be achieved only by finding means that are acceptable. It is not conducive to negotiations for one country to ignore reality and force its own self-righteousness upon another country. (2) It can only be said that the United States, seduced by its own doctrines and selfishness, was planning to expand the war. Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diar y 57 (3) Although it avoided handling its international relations by means of force, the United States government advanced its harsh claims by applying economic pressure, together with the British government and others. This kind of pressure can, at times, be even more inhumane than military pressure and should be avoided as a means of handling international rela¬ tions. (4) In every instance, what the US government demanded of Japan ignored reality in China and attempted to subvert the Position of Japan, which was the stabilizing force in East Asia. These demands by the American government prove that it had abandoned its position of ceasing to aid Chiang Kai-shek, and that its intention was to hinder the reestablishment not only of peace between Japan and China but in all of East Asia. The above makes it clear that Japan had lost all hope in fur- ther negotiation, and was forced to extreme measures as a matter of pure seif defense. (5) Furthermore, at the end [of the final note] it States: ‘The Japanese government has finally lost its hope of adjusting in¬ ternational relations and, together with the government of the United States, establishing and supporting peace in the Pacific. It is therefore with much regret that we notify the United States government that having taken into considera- tion the attitude of the United State government, we see no prospect for a solution by means of continued negotiation.” The above is a notice of a break in diplomatic relations and, moreover, given the strained circumstances of the time, we understood it to be notice of Japan’s intent to make war.fOn the evening of December 6, 1941, President Roosevelt himself read this and commented: “This means war”.] Note: 1. Yamamoto, in his testimony, says, “The members of the Liaison Conference firmly believed that the last words make clear the intention to break off diplomatic relations and make war.” Various Problems to which the Pearl HarborAttack is Central [Tojo’s notes of likely trial questions, and draft replies] 1. Why did Japan start the useless Great East Asian War? Answer: Leaving aside the more distant causes, the direct reasons were as follows: Japan’s military and economic sur- vival was threatened by a group of nations led by B ritain and the United States. Attempts were made to reach a solution by 58 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW negotiation between Japan and the United States, but that route was eventually foreclosed, so for reasons of self- preservation and self-defense, war was decided on. 2. On what day did Japan decide to make war? Answer: It was decided on the basis of conclusions reached at the Imperial Conference of Dec. 1. 3. As for the Imperial Conference of Dec. 1, was it not the case that war was to be made against the United States, Bri¬ tain and Holland because the negotiations with America bas- ed on the Imperial Policy Execution Outline adopted on Nov. 5 had come to nothing [a reference to the final Japanese pro- posal for a peaceful settlementj. Answer: That is correct. 4. In that case, Japan decided on war, not for reasons of seif preservation, but because the US-Japan negotiations had fail- ed. Is that not so? Answer: No. Naturally, there were various kinds of Pro¬ blems included in the US-Japan negotiations. However, the main thing was to relieve the threat to Japan’s existence. War was decided on because relief could not be obtained. 5. Nevertheless, according to the decision of the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5, 1941, “In order to break out of the pre¬ sent crisis and to achieve self-preservation and self-defense, and in order to establish a new order in Greater East Asia, war against the United States, Britain, and Holland is decided upon and the following measures are to be taken.” Does this not show that the establishment of a greater East Asian order was the main objective of the US-Japan negotiations? Answer: That is correct. At the time, the establishment of the new order in greater East Asia was one objective. 6. If that is the case, then was not the main reason for the decision to go to war the rejection of Japan’s Claims about the establishment of a new order in greater East Asia? Answer: No. The establishment of a new order in greater East Asia was one of the objectives of the US-Japan negotia¬ tions, but if this had been the only objective there would still have been prospects for a peaceful solution. In fact, during the course of the US-Japan negotiations, in this area Japan con- sidered the American Claims and made many concessions in the hope of reaching a solution. However, during this period, economic and military pressure from the British-American side grew ever stronger, and it became clear that Japan’s ex¬ istence was endangered. The decision to go to war was made Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 59 for that reason. Thus, the main reason for the decision to make war was self-preservation and self-defense. 7. According to the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5,1941, “At this time, it is decided to make war on Britain, the United States, and Holland, and the following measures are to be taken.” Does this not mean that the decision to make war on Britain, the United States, and Holland was made, not on Dec. Ist, but by decision of the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5? Answer: No. At the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5, it was decided that war against Britain, the United States and Holland would be unavoidable if no solution could be reached by diplomatic negotiation. On Dec. Ist, war was decided upon as a consequence of the failure of diplomatic negotiations. 8. [sic] Had not Japan already decided at the Imperial Con¬ ference of Nov. 5, 1941 to make war? Did it not send Am- bassador Kurusu to America in Order to Camouflage the deci¬ sion to make war and to carry out operations, rather than in any hope of achieving a diplomatic solution? Answer: No. Japan’s position at the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5,1941 was that the decision to make war would be unavoidable if the diplomatic negotiations did not reach a solution. We sincerely hoped that the US-Japan negotiations would achieve a breakthrough. At that Imperial Conference we did the following: 1) Decided to propose further concessions at the US-Japan negotiations. 2) As can be clearly seen from the decision that the deployment of force would be canceled if negotiations suc- ceeded by 0000 hours of Dec. 1, this was by no means a policy of Camouflage. Japan does not engage in Camouflage foreign relations as part of a policy to gain power. Moreover, at an im¬ portant meeting held in the presence of the Emperor, something like this would never have been permitted against his wishes. 9. That can be understood to some degree, but did you not make proposals in the US-Japan negotiations that you knew the United States could not accept, and thus anticipating the failure of the diplomatic negotiations, did you not deceive Am- bassadors Nomura and Kurusu? Has not Ambassador Nomura himself said, “I had not even imagined an attack on Hawaii’? Answer: No. What had been decided at the Imperial Con¬ ference of Nov. 5, 1941, was the limits of the concessions that Japan was then able to make. On the American side, from the very beginning there had not been the slightest softening of 60 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW demands. It is a fact that only the Japanese side had made con- cessions. Moreover, in my policy speech, as Prime Minister, to the 77th Diet session on Nov. 17, 1941, I spoke clearly of what we expected from diplomatic negotiations. At the same time, Foreign Minister Togo stated plainly, “Naturally, should it come to a matter in which a great nation were to lose its authority, a strong position must be taken to reject this, and we look forward to negotiations with sufficient determination on this point.” The full text was broadcast overseas at the time, intentions were made clear to the world, and the full text was printed in American newspapers. Consequently, at that stage American officials should have understood Japan’s resolve. If, at that point, the American side had accepted Japanese concessions and the US-Japan negotiations had reached a solution, deployment of force and preparations for same would have promptly been canceled, in accordance with the decision of the Nov. 5th Imperial Conference. To know this is to know that there was no Camouflage policy. That Am- bassador Nomura did not expect an attack on Hawaii is a fact. That sort of attack is top secret from an operational point of view, and in Order for it not to be disclosed, it was not even revealed to the general cabinet members who participated in the Imperial Conference. 10. When were operational preparations started for war against the United States, Britain, and Holland? Answer: That would be a matter for the Imperial General Headquarters and I do not know the details, but both the army and navy started operational preparations on the basis of deci- sions taken at the Nov. 5,1941 Imperial Conference. However, this was undertaken on condition that if there were a compromise in the diplomatic negotiations by 0000 hours, Dec. 1, 1941, everything could be halted immediately. 11. Is it correct to assume that the Orders with regard to the opening of hostilities in the war against the United States, Bri¬ tain, and Holland were issued immediately after the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5, 1941? Answer: No. Immediately after the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5, 1941, Orders were given for joint operational prepara¬ tions by the army and navy, and they would not have been Orders to Start operations. At this Imperial Conference it was decided only to Start preparing for operations. 12. In that case, what were the specifics of those prepara¬ tions? Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 61 Answer: That would be a matter for the Imperial General Headquarters and not within the area about which I can responsibly speak. About the navy, in particular, I am poorly informed. 13. Teil us what you knew as Army Minister. Answer: As I recall, the principal matters were as follows. However, they were undertaken principally under the authori- ty of the Army Chief of Staff. Nov. 6,1941 — General Headquarters of the Southern Army. Appointment of Marshall Terauchi as Supreme Commander of the Southern Army. Marshall Terauchi ordered to prepare to occupy vital areas to the south. Nov. 15, 1941 — Decision on an outline for an operations plan against Britain and U.S. 14. Did you know about the “Imperial Policy Execution Outline” that was adopted at the Imperial Conference of Sept. 6, 1941? Answer: I don’t recall the details but I have a general knowledge of it. 15. About its general outline: Based on Japan’s resolve to wage war against the United States, Britain, and Holland for reasons of self-preservation and self-defense, war preparations were to be largely complete by the latter part of October. Also, as mentioned before, if, by the first part of October, Japan’s requirements were still not met by diplomatic negotiation, Japan was resolved to wage war on the United States, Britain, and Holland. This is to say that preparations for war against the US, Britain, and Holland, that is to say, for the Great East Asian War, were not decided on at the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5,1941, but had already been decided on at the Imperial Conference of Sept. 6, had they not? Answer: Yes. As pointed out in the main text, under the strained circumstances of the time, for its own self- preservation and self-defense, Japan was to make every at- tempt at diplomacy. However, if Japan’s requirements could not be met, we had resolved to prepare for war, and were resolved to wage war against the US, Britain, and Holland. Thus, our war preparations had two postures: both war and peace. 16. The war preparations based on the decisions of the Im¬ perial Conference of Sept. 6,1941, were reconfirmed at the Im¬ perial Conference of Nov. 5, were they not? 62 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Answer: No. They were not reconfirmed. The war prepara- tions of the Sept. 6 Imperial Conference were based on the possibility of war with the US, Britain, and Holland, and were preparations in a broad sense. Specific preparations had not yet begun. In the meantime, the third Konoe cabinet had fallen and the Tojo cabinet had taken its place. Under instruction of the Emperor, all decisions up to the point were returned to a state of blank paper, and the current conditions were reap- praised by the Liaison Conference. It was on a new founda- tion that operations planning was decided on at the Nov. 5th Imperial Conference. 17. Even if that were the case, it was canceled only in the mind, and in reality war preparations had been continued since Sept. 6, and consequently they were only reconfirmed on Nov. 5 were they not? Answer: No. It was not only in the mind. It was based on the results of a reappraisal, and in reality, the preparations that began Sept. 6 were canceled. To be specific, this is clear from the fact that such specific operational preparations as the ap- pointment of the Supreme Commander of the Southern Army and the conclusion of the outline for operational plans against the US and Britain took place after the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5th. 18. Do you know about the “Imperial Policy Execution Outline to Follow Changing Circumstances” that was established at the Imperial Conference of July 2, 1941? Answer: I don’t remember the details but I know the general outline. 19. [sic] In Order to execute the decision items it clearly says, “completion of preparations for war against Britain and America,” and “do not shirk from war with Britain and America.” Judging from this, had not plans for the Great East Asian War already been considered by July 2, 1941? Answer: This Imperial Conference was held to set national policy after the beginning of hostilities between Germany and the Soviet Union. [Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.] Its main thrusts were to maintain the policy of establishing the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and to determine a Southern policy as well as a posture to adopt towards northern problems so as to solve the China Incident and establish a foundation for self-preservation and self- defense. With respect to executing a Southern policy with regard to French Indochina and Thailand, these were con- Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 63 tingency defensive preparations against the possibility that we might face military resistance from B ritain or America. These were not preparations for the Great East Asian War, which came later. 20. Earlier you said that the resolve to make war on Britain and America was a result of military and economic threats from the British-American side that endangered the existence of Japan, and was for self-preservation and self-defense, but when did those threats begin to be feit? Answer: In answer to that question, let me first say three things. First, Japan, China and Manchuria are at the center of a north- ern threat from Soviet power in the Siberian area, British power directed eastward from India, Burma, and Malaya, and American power directed northward from the Pacific. Thus, they were at the center of these three great forces and were in circumstances in which, as independent nations, they had to engage in self-preservation and self-defense. Second, in that environment, from July of 1937, Japan had been at war with China —a China complicated by the various powers’ rights and Privileges. Japan’s Opponent, the Chungk- ing government, was receiving support from powerful Britain and America, and was continuing the war. Third, after the first great European war, the United States raised its tariffs and strengthened the Pan American Union. Britain tightened its grip on the British economic bloc, the Soviet Union went into isolation, and Japan’s trade was ex- cluded all around the world. Then, when war broke out in Europe in 1939, one of its effects was that Japan’s peaceful trade was restricted to the United States and the Southern countries, and this trade was vital to the support of Japan’s ex¬ istence. 21. When did Japan begin to feel menaced by the British- American side? Answer: In early 1940 there was a threat to Japan in the [US] naval policy proposal. On July 25, 1940, oil and scrap metal were put on a permit-only basis. In Aug. 1940, there was the establishment of a regulär Joint Committee with Canada. In Sept. 1940, there was a representative meeting in Britain of Africa, Hong Kong, Malaya, Palestine and Britain about maintenance of the Situation in French Indochina. On Jan. 15, 1941, a Conference on Joint Pacific Defense was held in Washington for U.S., Britain, and Holland. In Feb. 1941, there 64 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW were measures to reinforce military bases in East Asia, Alaska, and the Pacific, followed by a concentration of forces in Malaya, Burma, and on the Thai border in order to disturb conversations between Japan and Thailand. On March 11, 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was passed. 22. Wasn’t that because war preparations had been com- pleted and the decision had been made to go to war? History shows that among the reasons for war there are always misunderstandings and miscalculations. Wasn’t it because there were important misunderstandings between Japan and the United States? Answer: The US-Japan negotiations were a series of misunderstandings right from the Start. However, the Hüll note could not possibly have been a simple misunderstanding. [This is a reference to Secretary of State Hull’s stiff response to the Japanese proposals of November 25, 1941, which he issued on the following day.] Outline of the Disagreements with Chief of Counsel Keenan’s Opening Address [Joseph Keenan was the Chief Prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East] Part I: On General Issue (1) Differences from the Japanese point of view about the wish for world peace and security. 1. The ultimate purpose of the trial is said to be “to con- tribute significantly to the future peace and security of the world.” The purpose of the indictments is “do justice properly.” It is arbitrarily concluded that Japan “declared war on civilization.” Consequently, “by means of the rights and powers granted,” “in order to prevent future wars,” it is claim- ed that “a firm struggle has been begun to protect the world from the destruction and obliteration of civilization.” It is also added that “it is not for such petty reasons as retribution or revenge.” 2. I have no objections to the wish for world peace and security and that all peoples be spared war. However, this can- not be expected merely because [a nation] arbitrarily defines “civilization” and assumes the posture of the world’s policeman. The fundamental causes of war must be studied, and they must first be removed. Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 65 3. If the victorious nations unilaterally and arbitrarily decide that their way of thinking is the best, and force it on other nations and peoples, it will instead be a reason for future conflicts and wars. The circumstances after the First Great European War and today’s world Situation after the end of the Second World War are eloquent testimony to this. 4. A correct conclusion about Japan’s behavior cannot be ar- rived at without understanding that the semi-colonized Status of East Asia, which had its roots in the distant past, was always a reason for the troubles of East Asia, and that the con- ditions of war that Japan encountered had these special cir¬ cumstances as their origin. 5. When a nation risks its fate by making war, there are always profound reasons for it. There is no nation in the world that likes war, and no people that likes war. (2) Errors in comments about civilization and international justice. fapan’s point of view: 1. I deny that Japan “declared war on civilization.” 2. To advocate a New Order was to seek freedom and respect for peoples without prejudice, and to seek a stable basis for the existence all peoples, equally, and free of threats. Thus, it was to seek true civilization and true justice for all the peoples of the world, and to view this as the destruction of per¬ sonal freedom and respect is to be assailed by the hatred and emotion of war, and to make hasty judgments. 3. I would like to point out their [my accusers’J inhumane and uncivilized actions in East Asia ever since the Middle Ages. 4. In the shadow of the prosperity of Europe and America, the colored peoples of East Asia and Africa have been sacrific- ed and forced into a state of semi-colonization. I would point out that the cultural advance of these people has been sup- pressed in the past and continues to be suppressed in the pre¬ sent by policies designed to keep them in ignorance. 5. I would point out that Japan’s proposal at the Versailles Peace Conference on the principle of racial equality was re- jected by delegates such as those from Britain and the United States. 6. Of two through five above, which is civilization? Which is international justice? Justice has nothing to do with Victor na¬ tions and vanquished nations, but must be a moral Standard 66 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW that all the world’s peoples can agree to. To seek this and to achieve it—that is true civilization. 7. In order to understand this, all nations must hate war, for- sake emotion, reflect upon their pasts, and think calmly. (3) The principle of no retroaction is being n eedlessly trampled under foot. 1. The illegality of trampling on the principle of no retroac¬ tion. 2. The illegality of trying to explain that illegal action in the name of civilization. 3. The danger posed to the maintenance of future peace by affirming this. Its myopic and incoherent character. (4) Denial of conspiracy 1. It is an absurdity to define “conspiracy,” which had as its purpose “domestic plots,” in such a way as to include the deliberations held as part of an independent nation’s political System (including cabinet meetings, Imperial Conferences, Imperial General Headquarters, Liaison Conferences). 2. In Japan there was no secret association that conspired, or plotted to wage war. One must be dreaming to think that there was an association in Japan like the Nazis in Germany, and any thinking based on such an assumption is a delusion. 3. On the true nature of the changes in Japan’s governments and the System of deciding on war. 4. It is absurd to ignore the treaty-making rights and powers of an independent nation and to conclude that the Tripartite Pact [of September 1940] with Germany and Italy was a con¬ spiracy. 5. Japan had no consistent war policy. 6. I would like to know how it was that many different defendants, of different ages, active at different times, in dif¬ ferent jobs, and in different locations could possibly have entered into a conspiracy. 7. The independence of the high command refutes the ex- istence of a conspiracy. 8. That there were differences of opinion among the defen¬ dants is evidence that there were arguments among the defen¬ dants. I point out the frail foundation for the view that “expan- sion of Japanese power in every direction” constitutes a crime of conspiracy. 9. The army’s land-based programs were opposed to the Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 67 navy’s sea-based programs, and this, too, is proof that there was no plot. (5) The appropriateness of the right of self-defense. Denial that Japan waged aggressive war. 1. The appropriateness, in international relations, of the right of self-defense is a right of an independent nation. 2. American Claims to the right of self-defense and Claims to the right of self-defense made prior to the outbreak of the Great East Asia War. (Claims made with respect to the Euro¬ pean War and its related actions. Also, an interpretation of the American Claims to self-defense focusing on the Tripartite Pact, made during the US-Japan negotiations.) 3. It was natural that given the special circumstances of East Asia, there would be frequent occurrences of self-defense act- ivity. 4. I point out the self-righteous interpretation of “aggression.” (6) Manchukuo and the other nations that were established in East Asia were legitimate. 1. Indicate the evidence that they were established accor- ding to the wills of their peoples. (Contrast with war-time governments in exile that were not on their native soil.) 2. I deny any violation of the Nine Power Treaty [concluded in 1922 to guarantee China’s territorial integrity]. 3. Japan’s friendly internal guidance during the develop- mental stage of the nation of Manchukuo did not deny its sovereignty. 4. The fact that ten or so nations recognized it. In particular, at the time of the signing of the Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Treaty in 1941, the Soviet Union affirmed the existence of Manchukuo, promised to respect its territory and refrain from aggression, and exchanged consuls. 5. Point out that pride was taken in political and economic help and intervention. 6. In their fundamental thinking, troop operations on the one hand, and the establishment and development of an in¬ dependent nation on the other, are different elements. It is not correct to confuse the two and mistakenly conclude that there was aggression or subjugation. 68 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW (7) The maintenance of international law and custom. I believe that in East Asia, human relations, customs, and habits are dif¬ ferent from those in the West. 1. It is natural to respect and to abide by international law and custom, but this must apply to Victors as well as to the vanquished. 2. On the Japanese national character and its respect for humanity. 3. How this applies to East Asia, where human relations, customs, habits and Standards of living are different. 4. The true meaning of not having ratified the treaty on prisoners of war [Geneva Conventions of 1929], and the fact that we applied the treaty. 5. That it is unreasonable to equate the casualties of a war, started with the intention of exercising self-defense, with murder. Part II - SPECIFIC ITEMS (The main purpose being to prove that Japan’s actions were not aggressive war but the exercise of the right of self- defense.) Outline of My Impressions of the Chief of Counsel’s Address Did Japan really declare war on civilization? (1) War is something that destroys the civilized life of peoples, so there can be no question that it is something that a nation must do everything to avoid. For this reason, in normal times, causes that could lead to war are suppressed before they lead to crisis or conflict, and early Solutions that prevent the eruption of conflict are necessary — so long as they are ar- rived at in the spirit of constant mutual compromise. This is particularly important for great nations. Moreover, not only does war result in great sacrifice and cost to both the Oppo¬ nent and to one’s own people, if an error is made and war is lost, it can result in miserable conditions in which the nation can be destroyed. Since this is well known, there is no such thing on the face of the earth as a nation that loves war, or what one might call a war-loving nation or war-loving people. Moreover, for one who is in a position of national leader¬ ship, it is natural that, faced with the heavy responsibility he bears towards nation and people, such a resolve should be thought over very seriously. Especially, when a small, weak Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 69 nation plunges into war with a great nation, that act in itself explains, without one word, the reason why war is necessary. When a great nation uses its power to force its will upon a small, peaceful nation, and tries to prevent its normal develop¬ ment and, moreover, threatens that nation’s existence in Order to achieve these aims, can that be conceived of as civilized conduct? According to the address by the chief of counsel, Japan declared war on civilization, but the responsibility for declar- ing war lies rather, as explained above, with the Anglo- American side, which forced Japan into war. Japan fought in Order to ensure its own survival and also to establish the pro¬ per survival of the people of East Asia. In other words, it sought true civilization for mankind. This truth is not to be judged hastily as the sorrowful lamentations of a vanquished country, for it is the truth of mankind. (A weak and gentle lamb —or nation —is born, and lives by eating grass. It has never even thought of eating the flesh of lions or tigers. Lions and tigers do eat the flesh of lambs and [what the chief of counsel is arguing] is like claiming that it is the natural fate of the lamb to be eaten by lions and tigers, and that this is civilization and justice.) (2) If one examines the Chief of Counsel’s address it is similar to denying to an independent nation the right to a war of self-defense. Avoiding any discussion of the reasonableness of a war of self-defense, it is unilaterally declared that Japan’s behavior was aggressive war, and this is the point of departure. It is not necessary to say a great deal about the fact that according to international law, a war of self-defense can be reasonable. As is clear from the diplomatic documents that preceded the con- clusion of the No-War Treaty [the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928], before adhering to this treaty, Japan reserved this very point. This is also clear from the explanation that then-US Secretary of State Kellogg gave to an American Conference on international law. If an independent nation faces an external threat to its existence and is endangered, it has the right to remove that threat. Many misunderstandings arise from not doing a theoretical study of the fact that Japan based its behavior on this right, and from summarily and arbitrarily concluding that what Japan did was a violation of interna¬ tional law. Moreover, the fact that Japan’s military self-defense activity was frequent is dismissed as nothing more than a com- 70 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW mon Japanese tactic, but no thought is given to the cir- cumstances of East Asia that gave rise to frequent self-defense activity. Further, a war of self-defense is proper under interna¬ tional law, it is a free action, and it is a right that an indepen¬ dent nation has under international law. Therefore it does not come under the constraints of the Hague Convention with respect to the initiation of war, and it is therefore not a Viola¬ tion of law if the final notice does not necessarily follow the form that it sets forth. For these reasons, it is a great error deliberately to ignore the circumstances and declare that Japan’s initiation of war on Dec. 8,1941 was an attack without warning and therefore a treaty violation, and therefore murder. (3) When I listen to the discussions about conspiracy, I get the impression that in order to find some basis for the Charge, materials have been collected and an attempt has been made to make something out of them. The assumption is that Japan had established the Great East Asian War as a goal, and had already planned and plotted it for many years. I do not get the impression that evidence was first gathered and that a judgment was then made on the basis of the evidence. Nothing is said about the international facts of the Anglo- American legal pressure applied after the First Great Euro¬ pean War [the First World War], Japan’s political cir¬ cumstances are ignored, and no thought is given to the efforts made to establish peace in East Asia. Moreover, there is no ex- planation as to how a conspiracy could be possible among a large number of defendants, whose ages differ greatly, and whose active periods, jobs, and workplaces are all different. Furthermore, it is a great error to say that the first step towards aggression was for an independent nation to establish school instruction as a way of nurturing Citizen spirit. Japan suffered greatly in the Russo-Japanese war [1904-1905]. Because China was weak, Japan assumed the bürden in place of China, and earned treaty-based rights by risking its very ex- istence as a nation. As a consequence, Manchukuo become a flourishing territory, and Japan was trying to develop. To say that this was the second step towards aggression is another great error. (4) An independent nation has the right to hold to an ideal. Despite this, the Anglo-American side sets up its own ideal about the establishment of world peace as the only correct Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 71 view. It summarily determines that Japan’s ideals —the New East Asian Order and the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere — are supranational thinking, and builds its arguments on that basis. Moreover, it fails to distinguish measures that were taken to realize that ideal and bring common benefits to the related nations, from measures taken to win the war and that were in effect only during the war. Thus mixed together, both are criticized. (5) Whether or not the laws and conventions of warfare were violated will be examined later in this trial. However, Japan is one of the civilized nations, and as part of its national character it would have attempted to abide by laws and con¬ ventions. These would be incidental acts undertaken by peo- ple on the battlefield (and obviously if they occurred, they are not be forgiven or justified). It is charged that this sort of behavior was an indispensable part of Japanese military activi- ty and it is concluded that it was simply one of the Japanese methods of war. However, compared to what was done to Japan —the indiscriminate bombing of defenseless cities and the calculated, gigantic massacre achieved by use of the atomic bomb —our actions were natural measures for main- taining civilization and our sin is light. (6) Manchukuo, the Nanking government, and such [Japanese sponsored] nations [Chinese] as the Philippines and Burma were recognized by as many as ten or more nations, in- cluding Japan. They were established according to interna¬ tional law, by the will of the people, and within national ter- ritories. Just because they were not recognized by the enemy during the war, they are now being called puppet govern- ments. It is true that as a result of that war they were destroyed, but it is a fact that they were not puppet govern- ments but nations recognized by a number of other nations. (7) Did the Tripartite Pact really plan world conquest? The real purpose of the Tripartite Pact was explained in the text of the treaty itself and was as follows: 1. That each country, in whatever it does in Order to gain its place, should first of all work for permanent peace. 2. That a new order was to be sought in Europe and in Greater East Asia for the common existence and prosperity of peoples. It was promised that this would be supported through mutual association and Cooperation. 3. Further, Cooperation was not to be denied nations, anywhere in the world, that were making similar efforts. 72 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW There would be an attempt to fulfill the ultimate hope of the three nations with respect to worid peace. In other words, Im¬ perialist policies were to be avoided, with a goal of co- existence and mutual prosperity rather than subjugation. It is natural for independent nations to wish for such things. For a disadvantaged nation, and for one to which pressures were being applied, this was nothing more than to seek the natural path of mankind, to advance along the path towards civiliza- tion. To think of this as worid conquest is a grave mistake. Fur- thermore, it is natural that the Anti-Comintern Pact, as stated in the text, would have entirely different purposes. As for whether there were secret agreements of some kind, I never heard of such a thing. (8) Leaving aside the question of whether it is appropriate to discuss the Russo-Japanese War during this trial, it was very much with the help of Britain and the United States that the war was carried out and was successful. At the time, the Japanese people feit grateful to those two nations. 1) Japan never planned to wage a war for the purposes of ag- gression. Japan always tried to establish its independence and self-preservation and self-defense, and tried to counter the in- stability and turmoil that resulted from European and American aggression in East Asia. Japan tried to stabilize East Asia and believed that this was a contribution to worid peace. 2) Contrary to the reasons for prosecution that are set out in many pages, the events from 1928 to 1945 — such things as the Manchurian Incident, the China Incident, and the Great East Asian War —were not carried out on the basis of a coherent, common plan. Each had its own causes based on the interna¬ tional Situation of the time, and each is a separate matter. 3) The “construction of a New East Asian Order” that was planned at the time of the China Incident, and the “construc¬ tion of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” that was planned at the time of the Great East Asian War were not for the purpose of gaining a sphere of military, political, and economic domination for Japan. The purpose was to relieve East Asia from the fetters and exploitation of the past several centuries of aggression and exploitation by the great powers of Europe and America. Each nation of East Asia was to respect the mutual autonomy of the others, cooperate economically, engage in mutual defense, seek the fruits of co- existence and co-prosperity, and seek peace in East Asia. Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 73 There was not the slightest attempt at aggression or exploita- tion. Instead, it was defense in the name of ensuring the sur- vival of East Asian nations and peoples. Furthermore, war was not waged in Order to achieve the goals of “construction of a New East Asian Order.” The attempt was made to achieve its goals by harmonizing it with the China Incident, which had occurred for other reasons. The same can be said for the con¬ struction of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was undertaken in connection with the Great East Asian War, which in turn occurred for separate reasons of its own. 4) Contrary to what is written in indictment 5, Japan did not join the Tripartite Pact in an attempt to secure military, political, and economic domination over the whole world. In¬ stead, 1. Ever since the Washington Conference [Nov. 1922-Feb. 1923], Japan had fallen into a state of international isolation, and it sought allies. It sought world peace, and the maintenance of a balance of world power. 2. Efforts were made to prevent the European War from spreading to East Asia. 3. It was hoped that Germany’s power would be of assistance in resolving the issue that was then of greatest con- cern to Japan, namely, the China Incident. 4. It was hoped that it would be of assistance in “construc¬ tion of a New East Asian Order.” Furthermore, contrary to what is written in indictment 5, there was no effort made to establish a particular position of domination in East Asia. It was a mutual recognition of Japan’s leadership position, of Japan’s capabilities of the time, of the fact that it was in a position to take the initiative with the various nations of East Asia. There was no attempt to sub- jugate the nations of East Asia. This is clear from the wording of the treaty. It was not, as written in indictment 5, an attempt to rule the world. It was the hope for a world in which every nation could achieve its own place. Moreover it is not the case that Japan, Germany, and Italy plunged into the Second World War ac- cording to plan. Each feil into a state of war in accordance with the circumstances of the time. (5) The Manchurian Incident has deep roots. Japan had won special rights as a result of the great sufferings of the Russo- Japanese War. China launched a planned, systematic, illegal 74 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW program of exclusion, insult, boycott of Japanese products, and persecution and violence against 1-1/2 million imperial subjects, including Koreans and legally-resident Japanese. The Mukden Incident was simply the spark that set things off. Contrary to what is written in indictment 2, it was not something that happened with the calculated objective of “establishing a separate nation under Japanese and Chinese rule.” At the time the incident began, the policy was to keep the trouble from spreading. That it did spread was a result of the natural exercise of an independent nation’s respon- sibilities in protecting 1-1/2 million imperial subjects — - Japanese and Koreans — who were suffering from a deteriora- tion of public order. Furthermore, the establishment of Manchukuo was con- ceived of by the people of Manchukuo themselves. Man¬ chukuo itself was the reason for the existence of the state of Manchukuo. Finally, for anyone who does not disregard the history of its origins and its geography, it is obvious that Man¬ chukuo would depend on Japan and have a destiny that was pro-Japanese. (6) The China Incident did not occur as set forth in indict¬ ment 3. It was a result of the fact that China had persisted, in a planned and systematic way, in excluding and insulting Japan, boycotting Japanese goods, persecuting resident Japanese, and committing massacres and violence. Its purpose was not, as set forth in indictment 3, “the direct or indirect establishment of one or more nations under the rule of Japan so that Japan could dominate China militarily, politically, and economically.” On the contrary, Japan hoped for the unity of China. Further, even after the incident began, reflecting on the reasons for the incident, Japan hoped for the “construction of a New East Asian Order” so as to bring about permanent stability in East Asia. The purpose was not for Japan to gain military, political and economic control of China. It was an effort to seek the true liberation of co-existence and co-prosperity that comes from neighborly relations, economic Cooperation, and common defense. (7) Contrary to what is claimed in indictment 4, Japan did not, for an extended period beginning in 1928, try to establish military, political, and economic dominance over broad areas of East Asia, Asia, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the adja- cent nations and islands. Instead, it sought to liberate East Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 75 Asia from several centuries of aggression, control, and ex- ploitation by the great powers of Europe and America. Its wish was for every nation of East Asia mutually to respect the autonomy of others, to build friendly relations, to cooperate economically, to maintain a common defense, to seek the fruits of co-existence and co-prosperity, and establish peace in East Asia. Japan had not the slightest aggressive or ex- ploitative intent. Instead, it wished to defend and ensure the survival of every East Asian nation and people. This is not to say that others were to be excluded. Moreover, war was not waged in Order to achieve the goals of the construction of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The reasons for war lay elsewhere. It was during a war that had occurred for other reasons, but in accordance with those circumstances, that an attempt was made to achieve the construction of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was ordered [by the “war crimes” tribunal] that virtually all enemy [American] documents of the following kind be withheld: those that might substantiate the Japanese claim that this was a war of self-defense or that there had been anti- Japanese economic pressure. (Such documents might have in- cluded the report of the Pearl Harbor Attack Investigation Committee [Joint Congressional Committee on the Pearl Har¬ bor Attack] and other US State Department documents.) Pressures of this kind were so flagrantly unfair that the American lawyers assigned to the defense finally made a re- quest: “We seek instruction from the Court as to whether evidence that Japan’s war was in self-defense will be accepted.” The court, touched in a vital spot, gave a vague answer. The question of military pressure will probably be handled in the same way. I will note with interest what happens. Pressures like this are fine. I hope that there is more and stronger pressure. It only demonstrates to the world how un¬ fair this trial is. It is amusing. (Impressions of Aug. 6). On the Causes of the War (1) I will ask about the reasons why Japan started the Pacific war. Answer: There is much that I would like to say about the deeper causes, but I will save that for later. The immediate cause was the Anglo-American side’s extreme military and 76 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW economic threats that put Japan’s existence in crisis. Japan tolerated this, and though it had little hope of success, sought resolution through US-Japan negotiations. However, in the end, the United States made difficult, unbearable demands, and the route to a solution through negotiation finally came to nothing. Japan was forced into a Situation that could permit no further delay. Thus, as an independent nation, for reasons of self-preservation and self-defense, Japan bravely determined to wage war. (2) However, the decision of the Imperial Conference of Dec. 1, 1941, says, “the American plan based on the Imperial Policy Execution Outline formulated on Nov. 5 not having come to fruition, war will be waged with the United States, Britain, and Holland.” From this it appears that Japan went to war, not out of self-preservation and self-defense, but because the US-Japan negotiations failed to reach a conclusion. Answer: Included in the US-Japan negotiations were various matters in addition to the demands that the threats against Japan be eased. The US and British economic and military threats were continued in parallel with the negotia¬ tions. I think that if there had been no such threats, the US- Japan negotiations would have continued, and even though there were problems, they could have been resolved by mutual compromise, and the Pacific War could have been avoided. However, these threats were only strengthened with the passage of time, and by August or September of 1941, Japan had already been pressed to the brink of the crisis. Hope lay only in the slim chance of a breakthrough in the US-Japan negotiations. The decision at the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5, 1941, was taken in these circumstances. The specific conditions with respect to the US-Japan negotiations that arose from this decision were that concessions were to be made on the other political issues, and our demands were to be concentrated on one thing: the easing of the threats to Japan’s self-preservation and self-defense. However, in reply to that last proposal, the United States made difficult proposals that were clearly unac- ceptable to Japan. The possibility of breakthrough through US- Japan negotiations disappeared. Therefore, as explained above, the decision was reached, as an independent nation, to wage a war of self-preservation and self-defense so as to escape from these very real threats. The breakdown in the negotiations itself was not the reason for war. Hideki Tojo's Prison Diary 77 Tojo reading in his prison cell. Your Excellency, it may be appropriate at this point to quote from the speech you made at the Imperial Conference. It says: 1) An attempt was made on the basis of the decision of Nov. 5 to adjust relations with the United States, but the United States did not make a single concession. 2) In fact, they sought unconditional and complete [Japanese] troop withdrawal [from China] under the joint supervision of the United States, Britain, Holland and China; the repudiation of the Nanking government; and the renuncia- tion of the Tripartite Pact. 3) The United States, Britain, Holland, and China stepped up their economic and military pressure. The decision of Nov. 5 sought the end of economic pressure (in particular, the unfreezing of funds, and the free acquisition of oil and other materials). The second draft mentions these things clearly. 78 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW —Kiyose [Chief defense counsel for Tojo] (3) From the mass of evidence produced so far, it can be con- cluded that Japan considered the construction of a New Order for Greater East Asia an important political objective. Since the construction of a New Order for Greater East Asia was the primary objective of the US-Japan negotiation and was also the reason for starting the war, this talk of US and British threats is nothing more than an excuse, is it not? Answer: No. As explained above, the cause of the war was the threats from the US-British side. This is not an excuse. The construction of a New Order for Greater East Asia was certainly, ever since the China incident, an important Japanese policy, and it was the main point of the US-Japan negotiations. However, Japan hoped for a realization of this policy on a peaceful basis of understanding by both nations. The US-Japan negotiations were one of the means to bring this about. In fact, on this issue, during the US-Japan negotiations, Japan considered the American side’s Claims and tried to reach a solution by making concession after concession. Con- sequently, if this had been the only issue, there would have been no necessity to decide on war with the United States. (4) If, as you say, the cause of the Pacific War was military and economic pressure from the American and British side that forced Japan into a crisis over its very existence, why were the US-Japan negotiations not concentrated on solving this one question? Answer: The US-Japan negotiations changed over time. In April 1941, when the negotiations began, Japan had political objectives including the following: 1) The reestablishment of peace in East Asia by means of a resolution of the China Incident. 2) The maintenance of peace in the Pacific, which was beset by crises. 3) Prevention, in ac- cordance with the Tripartite Pact, of the spread of the Great European War to East Asia. 4) Establishment of an economy of self-supply and self-sufficiency in the face of US and British economic pressure. We concluded that the US side also hoped to keep peace in East Asia. It was thought that the satisfactory solution of these issues would be the foundation of a recovery in relations be- tween Japan and the United States, and this was made the basis of U.S.-Japan negotiations. At that time, the economic and military pressure against Japan had not yet reached its peak. Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 79 In July 1941, the economic blockade of Japan —of which the freezing of assets by the US, Britain, and Holland was the main element—along with military pressure brought Japan face to face with death. Consequently, at this period, the main issue of the negotiations was the relief and elimination of threats. This is clear from the Japanese side’s proposal of November 0 [November 7] based on the second draft based on the decision of the Imperial Conference of Nov. 5, 1941. (5) You say that the cause of the war was economic and military threats from the United States and Britain against the existence of Japan, but what do you mean? Please give us a summary. Answer: As has already been demonstrated, after the First Great European War, and after the Manchurian Incident, the United States adopted a policy of high tariffs, Britain built up an imperial economic bloc, and Japan’s trade was excluded from one part of the world after another. Further, at the end of July 1939, the United States suddenly applied economic pressure, principally by rescinding its trade and commerce treaty with Japan. This, together with the outrageous act of economic blockade by means of the freezing of Japanese assets by the United States, Britain, and Holland, was a mortal threat to Japan, whose economic activities depended on foreign trade. This kind of economic blockade by nations with which Japan was not in a state of war was feit as an enemy act that was little different from war. From a military point of view, the US-British side openly increased its support of the Chungking forces, thus causing the war to con- tinue. Moreover, the United States, Britain, and Holland, in concert with the Chungking government, concentrated troops in the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, and Dutch Indochina, and strengthened their military preparations by such means as in- creasing airbase facilities. A great American fleet was assembled in Hawaii and readied so as to be able to start operations at a moment’s notice. Such were the threats that faced Japan. Moreover, at the same time, according to reports, on October 3, 1941, British and American leaders met in Manila to discuss operations. Further, on October 9, a U.S. military delegation was received at a meeting in Hong Kong, at which support for China and the continued resistance of Chungking were discussed. Likewise, a certain American ad- miral (note: commander of the Pacific fleet, [Husband E.J Kim¬ mei) threatened Japan with his famous Statement to the effect 80 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW that if there were war with Japan, the entire Japanese fleet could probably be sunk in a few weeks. Further, on Nov. 10, 1941, the British Prime Minister, at a luncheon for the installa- tion of the [lord] mayor of London, said that if there were war between Japan and the United States, Britain was prepared to declare war on Japan within 24 hours. This was taken to mean that Britain and the United States were in complete accord on the subject of war with Japan, and that this resolve was inten- tionally being revealed. Even if the threats from Britain and the United States were real, were they not provoked by Japan’s Southern advance into French Indochina and the consequent threat to British and American territory? Answer: No. Japan’s Southern advance was to: 1. Cut off the life line to the Chungking forces that ran through French Indochina and Burma —this, with the inten- tion of resolving the China Incident. 2. Establish economic self-sufficiency so as to escape from Anglo-American economic pressure. If, on the American and British side, there had been no Sup¬ port for Chungking or encouragement of continued resistance, this would not have been necessary. Moreover, if there had been no American and British economic pressure, and Japan had been able to continue in its economic dependency on peaceful foreign commerce, there would have been no need to advance to the south. It was natural that Japan should try to improve friendly relations with French In¬ dochina and Thailand while peace lasted; these were nations with which Japan had broad connections. When you touch on this point, the Chief of Counsel is likely to refer to the decisions of the July 6 Imperial Conference, par- ticularly “French Indochina and Thailand policy items” and “matters related to furthering the Southern policy,” and to cross examine you on these matters. Please be prepared. The summary of item two of the decisions made on July 2 reads, “For its self-preservation and self-defense, Japan will continue the diplomatic negotiations necessary with respect to the Southern territories, and will promote various other policies.” Furthermore, according to this section —“for this reason preparations for war with the United States and Bri¬ tain are to be advanced, and first, policy items with regard to French Indochina and Thailand, as well as the matter of pro- moting the Southern policy” — various policies with respect to Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 81 French Indochina and Thailand were to be carried out and the conditions for Southern advance were to be strengthened. It says, “in Order to achieve this goal, Japan should not shirk from war with the United States and Britain.” The policy items with regard to French Indochina and Thailand were decisions of the Liaison Conference of Feb. 1, 1941, and it says, “for the self-preservation and self-defense of Japan, military, political, and economic Union that is close and inseparable is to be established with French Indochina and Thailand.” Furthermore, with respect to the promotion of the Southern policy, at what is thought to be about the time of the April 17 Liaison Conference decision, (1) Military, political, and economic relations that are close and inseparable are to be established with French Indochina and Thailand. (2) Close economic relations are to be established with Dutch In¬ dochina. (3) Proper commercial relations will be maintained with the remaining Southern nations. In principle, the realization of the above objective is to be by diplomatic means. In carrying out the above policy, military force is to be used for self-preservation and self-defense, only if such things as the following occur, and there is no means of resolving them: (1) A trade embargo by the United States, Bri¬ tain, and Holland that threatens the survival of Japan. (2) The encirclement policy against Japan is strengthened by the United States, Britain, Holland, and China, and this cannotbe tolerated for reasons of national security. There is no contradiction between this and your proposed answer, but I noted it so that you would have it in mind. Fur¬ thermore, was it not concluded that the reason economic negotiations with Dutch Indochina by Kobayashi [Kobayashi Ichizoo, Minister of Commerce and Industry, who was head of the trade delegation that was sent to negotiate the import of oil, tin and rubber] and Yoshizawa [Yoshizawa Kenichi, former Foreign Minister, who succeeded Kobayashi] failed, was that there was behind-the-scenes interference by the United States and Britain? — Kiyose (7) In reply to the first question, you said that you would put aside the deeper causes, but are those deeper causes addi¬ tional reasons why Japan entered the Pacific War? Answer: The deeper causes are what created the objective circumstances that drew the opponents into the unhappy fate 82 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW of the Pacific War, but they are not the direct causes. However, in order to avoid future wars, and in Order seriously to think about world peace, they are large subjects on which both the winners and the losers should reflect calmly. The reason why disturbances are common in East Asia, the reason Japan had been speaking of a New Order, the idea of building a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, the real meaning of the cry from the heart of the peoples of East Asia — all have their origins in these deeper causes. (8) Is that your personal view or iS that the official view of the Japanese government? Answer: It is not my personal view. It is the foundational thinking on which the Japanese government based important policies. (9) In that case, how can you demonstrate that this was of¬ ficial, foundational thinking? Answer: Of all the declarations made by the various govern- ments since the Start of the China Incident, the clearest is the Joint Declaration of Greater East Asia made at the Greater East Asian Conference on Nov. 8, 1943. It is also clear from the speeches given at the Conference by the delegates of the various countries. Also, the actual independence or in- dependence movements that arose during the Pacific War in the Philippines, Burma, India and in other places are an elo¬ quent testimonial. (10) If what you say is true, then what you call the cry from the heart of East Asian peoples and nations, their ardent desire, took shape as Japan’s New Order policy. That can be taken as an important cause of the war, can it not? Answer: No. Indeed, it was one of Japan’s important na¬ tional policies, and everything was done to bring it to fruition. However, it is well known that a nation that exists in an inter¬ national setting cannot expect its unilateral demands and wishes to be accepted unquestioningly by others. This is something that comes about from a spirit of mutual com- promise and mutual sympathy, with each nation and people recognizing the welfare of others and making as their ideal the establishment of world peace. It is a question of the heart, and if only there is a conviction that war is unnecessary can things be achieved peacefully. This was what Japan hoped and strove for to the end. However, for other reasons, and before its policies could be achieved by peaceful means, Japan was lured into war. Therefore, these became the deeper causes that Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 83 established the environment for the Pacific War, but they were not the direct causes. (11) Nevertheless, any world statesman from a nation with an important Connection with East Asia, if he had the slightest genuine desire for World peace, would not have ignored something as important as this was to the nations and peoples of East Asia. What do you say to that? Answer: That is correct. It is something that could not be ig¬ nored and was not ignored. (12) On what basis do you say that it was not ignored? I s hall explain the facts. 1. At the Washington Conference in 1922, other important questions were raised, but this problem was also considered. However, at that time, the cry from the heart of the nations and peoples of East Asia was not thoroughly understood. It was thought that the East Asian nations could be controlled through pressure and by alienating them from each other. 2. It can also be seen in the “Atlantic Charter,” which was agreed to by Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt at a meeting held in the Atlantic [August 14, 1941]. At this time, the full war in Europe had already broken out, the unfortunate China Incident had occurred in East Asia, and the tactic used by the Americans and the British of sowing discord among the nations of East Asia was a great obstacle to Japan’s attempt to reach peace with China. In the Atlantic Charter that resulted from this meeting, one cannot fail to note that the feelings of the East Asian peoples and nations were taken into consideration relatively often. However, the Presi¬ dent and the British Prime Minister had, as top politicians, already lost appropriate expectations for East Asia. They should have been more hold in grasping what was happening in East Asia, in making important corrections to the mistakes of the past, and in making adjustments to the demands of the times. Moreover, both nations had failed to understand that they should abandon their traditional East Asian policy of sowing discord among nations, and should instead adopt a Position of leadership based on the spirit of mutual aid and Cooperation. Their only preparation for a great conflagration was a fire-fighting policy rather than a fire prevention policy. 3. These things are given further consideration in the Potsdam Declaration [August 2,1945] but this was at the close of the Pacific War, and was not a policy for avoiding war. 84 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW (13) Do you mean, in your testimony, to criticize the past policies of the victorious powers and thereby defy the dignity of this court? Answer: I have no intention at all of defying the dignity of the court. Nor do I intend to criticize the past policies of the victorious powers. It is regrettable if what I have said gives that impression. I am only describing the facts, and explaining the effect that Britain and America’s past policies had on the peoples of East Asia. It should be the intention of the vic¬ torious powers to seek true peace for the futiire, and in Order to help them make fair observations, I believe it is the duty of a defendant to provide the court with material for reflection. (14) Assuming that what you say is true, if the leaders of the United States and England had, even to a small degree, taken heed of the hopes and cries from the heart of the nations and peoples of East Asia, then you, as a leader of Japan, should have taken a positive role in showing understanding to these hopes and cries, should you not? Answer: That is correct. I think what you say is true. This is what Japan desired for Japan as well as for the nations and peoples of East Asia. However, world politics must work with nations and peoples, which are living things. An effect can be achieved, and peace preserved only if the right policies are carried out at the right time. It does no good to give medicine to a corpse. (15) According to your testimony so far, the reason that Japan went to war was not the breakdown of the US-Japan negotiations, nor was it as a result of Greater East Asian policies. Instead, you say the direct cause was economic and military threats from the allied side, and that Japan went to war for reasons of self-defense and self-preservation. If that is the case, why did Japan not adopt a policy of stopping the war in its early stages, in mid-1942, for example, by which time those threats had been largely dissipated? Answer: War is not a solitary undertaking. Even if that might have been good for Japan, we did not think that the enemy would have agreed. In particular, both sides were bound by treaty not to make conclude a separate peace, and the world Situation did not appear to be one in which pro- posals advantageous only to Japan would be accepted. Moreover, whatever the reasons for making war, once it had begun, we thought to win it, to adjust Japan’s policies to the Hideki Tojo’s Prison Diary 85 circumstances of war and, within the Parameters permitted by international law, to proceed boldly. The Inimitable American Historian Harry Eimer Barnes. Nine of His Most Potent Revisionist Essays on World War II, in a Strikingly Handsome New Collection. American Intellectual Giant Harry Eimer Barnes-historian, sociologist, criminologist, journalist, and controversialist without peer-was for over a half a Century our country’s leading voice for avoiding unnecessary wars through objective study of their causes. A pioneer in the Revisionist school of history, Barnes evaded the traps and snares by which “conservatives” and “liberals” alike have been lured into fighting one costly war, “conflict,” or “police action” after another during this Century. A bolt of lightning against the Establishments historical blackout, Barnes had the courage to find and reveal the facts on how our govemment lied us into two world wars once upon a time when almost all Americans trusted their leaders-and his was a prescient voice in the wildemess against our involvement in the Korean and Vietnam quagmires. These nine classic essays are Barnes at his best. Informed, passionate, more relevant than ever today, they show how the twentieth century’s equivalent of the court historians of despots past erected a glittering facade of lies to hide the hollowness of America’s “victories” in the two world wars, then used the false arguments that got us into those wars to inflict “perpetual war for perpetual peace” on three generations of Americans who have come of age since. As current as today’s headlines, Barnes Against the Blackout-mtrodwceA by James J. Martin-is must reading for every American concemed to keep our country strong, free, and at peace. BARNES AGAINST THE BLACKOUT INCLUDES THESE ESSAYS Blasting the Historical Blackout • The Court Historians vs. Revisionism • Revisionism and the Promotion of Peace • Revisionism and the Historical Blackout • Revisionism and Brainwashing • Was Roosevelt Pushed into War by Populär Demand in 1941? • Rauch on Roosevelt • The Chickens of the Interventionist Liberals Have Come Home to Roost • How Nineteen-Eighty-Four Trends Threaten American Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Published by Institute for Historical Review Softcover • 376 pages • Index • $13.95 ISBN 0-939484-36-6 War and Peace: Two Historie Speeches CHARLES A. LINDBERGH In May 1927, a shy, handsome young man from Michigan named Charles Lindbergh suddeniy became the idol of miilions when he landed his small airplane in Paris after a grueiing 33-hour flight from New York — the first person to fly alone, non¬ stop, across the Atlantic ocean. Twelve years later, this politically astute son of a United States Congressman resolved to speak out against President Franklin Roosevelt’s illegal campaign to push the United States in to the European war that had broken out in September 1939. The Most important national peace Organization ofthis period was the America First Committee. Founded in July 1940, the broad-based citizens’ coalition quickly grew to a membership of some 800,000. For his work as the Committee’s most prominent and articulate spokesman, Lindbergh was both widely praised and bitterly denounced. In a series of persuasive and widely-noted speeches, Lind¬ bergh gave voice to the thoughts and /eelings of the great majori- ty of Americans who wanted to keep their country out of war. Published here are the complete texts oftwo o/these historical speeches: Lindbergh’s radio address of October 13, 1939, “Neutrality and War,” and his speech of August 4, 1940, “Our Relationship with Europe.” Each address was broadcast on the Mutual radio network. Neutrality and War T onight, I speak again to the people of this country who are opposed to the United States entering the war which is now going on in Europe. We are faced with the need of deciding on a policy of American neutrality. The future of our nation and of our civilization rests upon the wisdom and foresight we use. Much as peace is to be desired, we should 88 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW realize that behind a successful policy of neutrality must stand a policy of war. It is essential to define clearly those principles and circumstances for which a nation will fight. Let us give no one the impression that America’s love for peace means that she is afraid of war, or that we are not fully capable and will- ing to defend all that is vital to us. National life and influence depend upon national strength, both in character and in arms. A neutrality built on pacifism alone will eventually fail. Before we can intelligently enact regulations for the control of our armaments, our credit, and our ships, we must draw a sharp dividing line between neutrality and war; there must be no gradual encroachment on the defenses of our nation. Up to this line we may adjust our affairs to gain the advantages of peace, but beyond it must lie all the armed might of America, coiled in readiness to spring if once this bond is cut. Let us make clear to all countries where this line lies. It must be both within our intent and our capabilities. There must be no ques- tion of trading or bluff in this hemisphere. Let us give no pro- mises we cannot keep —make no meaningless assurances to an Ethiopia, a Czechoslovakia, or a Poland. The policy we decide upon should be as clear cut as our shorelines, and as easily defended as our continent. This Western hemisphere is our domain. It is our right to trade freely within it. From Alaska to Labrador, from the Hawaiian Islands to Bermuda, from Canada to South America, we must allow no invading army to set foot. These are the outposts of the United States. They form the essential outline of our geographical defense. We must be ready to wage war with all the resources of our nation if they are ever seriously threatened. Their defense is the mission of our army, our navy, and our air corps—the minimum requirement of our military strength. Around these places should lie our line be¬ tween neutrality and war. Let there be no compromise about our right to defend or trade within this area. If it is challenged by any nation, the answer must be war. Our policy of neutral¬ ity should have this as its foundation. We must protect our sister American nations from foreign invasion, both for their welfare and our own. But, in turn, they have a duty to us. They should not place us in the position of having to defend them in America while they engage in wars abroad. Can we rightfully permit any country in America to War and Peace, Two Historie Speeches 89 give bases to foreign warships, or to send its army abroad to fight while it remains secure in our protection at home? We desire the utmost friendship with the people of Canada. If their country is ever attacked, our Navy will be defending their seas, our soldiers will fight on their battlefields, our fliers will die in their skies. But have they the right to draw this hemisphere into a European war simply because they prefer the Crown of England to American independence? Sooner or later we must demand the freedom of this conti- nent and its surrounding islands from the dictates of Euro¬ pean power. American history clearly indicates this need. As long as European powers maintain their influence in our hemisphere, we are likely to find ourselves involved in their troubles. And they will loose no opportunity to involve us. Our congress is now assembled to decide upon the best policy for this country to maintain during the war which is go- ing on in Europe. The legislation under discussion involves three major issues—the embargo of arms, the restriction of shipping, and the allowance of credit. The action we take in regard to these issues will be an important indication to ourselves, and to the nations of Europe, whether or not we are likely to enter the conflict eventually as we did in the last war. The entire world is watching us. The action we take in America may either stop or precipitate this war. Let us take up these issues, one at a time, and examine them. First, the embargo of arms: It is argued that the repeal of this embargo would assist democracy in Europe, that it would let us make a profit for ourselves from the sale of munitions abroad, and, at the same time, help to build up our own arms industry. I do not believe that repealing the arms embargo would assist democracy in Europe because I do not believe this is a war for democracy. This is a war over the balance of power in Europe—a war brought about by the desire for strength on the part of Germany and the fear of strength on the part of England and France. The munitions the armies obtain, the longer the war goes on, and the more devastated Europe becomes, the less hope there is for democracy. That is a lesson we should have learned from participation in the last war. If democratic principles had been applied in Europe after that war, if the “democracies” of Europe had been willing to make 90 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW some sacrifice to help democracy in Europe while it was fighting for its life, if England and France had offered a hand to the struggling republic of Germany, there would be no war today. If we repeal the arms embargo with the idea of assisting one of the warring sides to overcome the other, then why mislead ourselves by talk of neutrality? Those who advance this argu- ment should admit openly that repeal is a step toward war. The next step would the extension of credit, and the next step would be the sending of American troops. To those who argue that we could make a profit and build up our own industry by selling munitions abroad, I reply that we in America have not yet reached a point where we wish to capitalize on the destruction and death of war. I do not believe that the material welfare of this country needs, or that our spiritual welfare could withstand, such a policy. If our in¬ dustry depends upon a commerce of arms for its strength, then our industrial System should be changed. It is impossible for me to understand how America can con- tribute to civilization and humanity by sending offensive In¬ struments of destruction to European battlefields. This would not only implicate us in the war, but it would make us partly responsible for its devastation. The fallacy of helping to de- fend a political ideology, even though it be somewhat similar to our own, was clearly demonstrated to us in the last war. Through our help that war was won, but neither the democracy nor the justice for which we fought grew in the peace that followed our victory. Our bond with Europe is a bond of race and not of political ideology. We had to fight a European army to establish democracy in this country. It is the European race we must preserve; political progress will follow. Racial strength is vital—politics, a luxury. If the white race is ever seriously threatened, it may then be time for us to take our part in its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French, and Germans, but not with one against the other for our mutual destruction. Let us not dissipate our strength, or help Europe to dissipate hers, in these wars of politics and possession. For the benefit of Western civilization, we should continue our embargo on War and Peace , Two Historie Speeches 91 offensive armaments. As far as purely defensive arms are con- cerned, I, for one, am in favor of supplying European coun¬ tries with as much as we can spare of the material that falls within this category. There are technicians who will argue that offensive and defensive arms cannot be separated com- pletely. That is true, but it is no more difficult to make a list of defensive weapons than it is to separate munitions of war from semi-manufactured articles, and we are faced with that Problem today. No one says that we should seil opium because it is difficult to make a list of narcotics. I would as soon see our country traffic in opium as in bombs. There are certain borderline cases, but there are plenty of clear cut examples: for instance, the bombing plane and the anti-aircraft cannon. I do not want to see American bombers dropping bombs which will kill and mutilate European children, even if they are not flown by American pilots. But I am perfectly willing to see American anti-aircraft guns shooting American shells at in- vading bombers over any European country. And I believe that most of you who are listening tonight will agree with me. The second major issue for which we must create a policy concerns the restrictions to be placed on our shipping. Naval blockades have long been accepted as an element of warfare. They began on the surface of the sea, followed the submarine beneath it, and now reach up into the sky with aircraft. The laws and customs which were developed during the surface era were not satisfactory to the submarine. Now, aircraft bring up new and unknown factors for consideration. It is simple enough for a battleship to identify the merchantman she cap- tures. It is a more difficult problem for a submarine if that mer¬ chantman may carry cannon; it is safer to fire a torpedo than to come up and ask. For bombing planes flying at high altitudes and through conditions of poor visibility, Identifica¬ tion of a surface vessel will be more difficult still. In modern naval blockades and warfare, torpedoes will be fired and bombs dropped on probabilities rather than on cer- tainties of Identification. The only safe course for neutral ship¬ ping at this time is to stay away from the warring countries and dangerous waters of Europe. The third issue to be decided relates to the extension of credit. Here again we may draw from our experience in the last war. After that war was over, we found ourselves in the 92 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Position of having financed a large portion of European coun¬ tries. And when the time came to pay us back, these countries simply refused to do so. They not only refused to pay the war- time loans we made, but they refused to pay back what we loaned them after the war was over. As is so frequently the case, we found that loaning money eventually created animosity instead of gratitude. European countries feit in- sulted when we asked to be repaid. They called us “Uncle Shylock.” They were horror struck at the idea of turning over to us any of their islands in America to compensate for their debts, or for our help in winning their war. They seized all the German colonies and carved up Europe to suit their fancy. These were the “fruits of war.” They took our money and they took our soldiers. But there was not the offer of one Caribbean island in return for the debts they “could not afford to pay.” The extension of credit to a belligerent country is a long step toward war, and it would leave us close to the edge. If American industry loans money to a belligerent country, many interests will feel that it is more important for that country to win than for our own to avoid the war. It is unfortunate but true that there are interests in America who would rather lose American lives than their own dollars. We should give them no opportunity. I believe that we should adopt as our program of American neutrality—as our contribution to Western civilization—the following policy: 1. An embargo on offensive weapons and munitions. 2. The unrestricted sale of purely defensive armaments. 3. The prohibition of American shipping from the belligerent countries of Europe and their danger zones. 4. The refusal of credit to belligerent nations or their agents. Whether or not this program is adopted depends upon the support of those of us who believe in it. The United States of America is a democracy. The policy of our country is still con- trolled by our people. It is time for us to take action. There has never been a greater test for the democratic principle of government. War and Peace , Two Historie Speeches 93 Our Relationship with Europe S everal weeks have passed since I received the honor of your invitation to speak in Chicago. At that time it was essential to create strong and immediate Opposition to the trend toward war which was taking place in this country. The agitation for our entry in the war was increasing with alarm- ing rapidity. Hysteria had mounted to the point where anti- parachute corps were being formed to defend American cities against air attacks from Europe. Greenland, with its Arctic climate, its mountainous terrain, and its ice-filled seas was called an easy stepping-stone for German bombing planes in- vading America. Cartoons showed the Atlantic Ocean reduc- ed to the width of the English Channel. American safety was said to depend upon the success of European armies. Foreign Propaganda was in full swing, and it seemed in many ways that we were approaching the greatest crisis in the history of our country. But events move swiftly in this modern world, and the true character of a nation lies beneath such surface foam. When the danger of foreign war was fully realized by our people, the underlying tradition of American independence arose, and in recent weeks its voice has thundered through the weaker cries for war. We have by no means escaped the foreign entanglements and favoritisms that Washington warned us against when he passed the guidance of our nation’s destiny to the hands of future generations. We have participated deeply in the in- trigues of Europe, and not always in an open “democratic” way. There are still interests in this country and abroad who will do their utmost to draw us into the war. Against these in¬ terests we must be continuously on guard. But American opin- ion is now definitely and overwhelmingly against our involve- ment. Both political parties have declared against our entry in¬ to the war. People are beginning to realize that the problems of Europe cannot be solved by the interference of America. We have at last started to build and to plan for the defense of our own continent. By these acts, our eyes are turned once more in the direction of security and peace, for if our own military forces are strong, no foreign nation can invade us, and, if we do not interfere with their affairs, none will desire to. 94 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Since we have decided against entering the war in Europe, it is time for us to consider the relationship we will have with Europe after this war is over. It is only by using the utmost in- telligence in establishing and maintaining this relationship that we can keep America out of war in the future. I have a different Outlook toward Europe than most people in America. In consequence, I am advised to speak guardedly on the subject of the war. I am told that one must not stand too strongly against the trend of the times, and that, to be effec- tive, what one says must meet with general approval. There is much to be said for this argument, yet, right or wrong, it is contrary to the values that I hold highest in life. I prefer to say what I believe, or not to speak at all. I would far rather have your respect for the sincerity of what I say, than attempt to win your applause by confining my discussion to populär concepts. Therefore, I speak to you today as I would speak to close friends rather than as one is supposed to ad¬ dress a large audience. I do not offer my opinion as an expert, but rather as a Citizen who is alarmed at the position our country has reached in this era of experts. As laymen we are often told that the solution of difficult problems should be left to the specialist. But since specialists differ in the Solutions they recommend, they must at least allow us the privilege of choosing those we wish to follow. And in making this choice, it seems that we are back where we started and must form an opinion of our own. I found conditions in Europe to be very different from our concept of them here in the United States. Anyone who takes the trouble to read through back issues of our newspapers can- not fail to realize what a false impression we had of the belligerent nations. We were told that Germany was ripe for revolution, that her rearmament was a bluff, that she lacked officers, that she flew her airplanes from one field to another so they would be counted again and again by foreign obser- vers. We were informed that Russia had the most powerful air fleet in the world, that the French army was superior to any in Europe, that the British navy was more than a match for the German air force, that Germany lacked enough food, fuel, and raw material to wage war, that the Maginot Line was impreg- nable, that Italy would never enter a war against England. Statements of this sort have issued forth in an endless stream from Europe, and anyone who questioned their accuracy was called a Nazi agent. War and Peace, Two Historie Speeches 95 These examples show how greatly we have been misled about the military conditions in Europe. If one goes still far- ther back, he will find that we have also been misled about political conditions. It has seemed obvious to me for many years that the Situation in Europe would have to change, either by agreement or by war. I hoped that we had reached a degree of civilization where change might come by agreement. Living in Europe made me fear that it would come only through war. There is a proverb in China which says that “when the rieh become too rieh, and the poor too poor, something happens.” This applies to nations as well as to men. When I saw the wealth of the British Empire, I feit that the rieh had become too rieh. When I saw the poverty of Central Europe, I feit that the poor had become too poor. That something would happen was blazoned even on the skies of Europe by mounting thousands of fighting aircraft. From 1936 to 1939, as I travelled through European coun¬ tries, I saw the phenomenal military strength of Germany growing like a giant at the side of an aged, and complacent England. France was awake to her danger, but far too occu- pied with personal ambitions, industrial troubles, and internal politics to make more than a feeble effort to rearm. In England there was Organization without spirit. In France there was spirit without Organization. In Germany there were both. I realized that I was witnessing a clash between the heirs of another war. A generation had passed since the Treaty of Ver¬ sailles. The sons of victory and the sons of defeat were about to meet on the battlefields of their fathers. As I travelled first among those who had won, and then among those who had lost, the words of a French philosopher kept running through my mind: “Man thrives on adversity.” The underlying issue was clear. It was not the support of “democracy,” or the so-called democratic nations would have given more assistance to the struggling republic of post-war Germany. It was not a crusade for Christianity, or the Christ¬ ian nations of the west would have carried their battle flags to the confiscated churches of Russia. It was not the preservation of small and helpless nations, or sanctions would have been followed by troops in Abyssinia, and England would not have refused to cooperate with the United States in Manchuria. The issue was one of the oldest and best known among men. It concerned the division of territory and wealth between 96 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW nations. It has caused conflict in Europe since European history began. The longer I lived in Europe, the more I feit that no outside influence could solve the problems of European nations, or bring them lasting peace. They must work out their destiny, as we must work out ours. I am convinced that the better ac- quainted we in America become with the background of Euro¬ pean conflicts, the less we will desire to take part in them. But here I would like to make this point clear: while I advocate the non-interference by America in the internal affairs of Europe, I believe it is of the utmost importance for us to cooperate with Europe in our relationships with the other peoples of the earth. It is only by Cooperation that we can maintain the supremacy of our Western civilization and the right of our commerce to proceed unmolested throughout the world. Neither they nor we are strong enough to police the earth against the Opposition of the other. In the past, we have dealt with a Europe dominated by England and France. In the future we may have to deal with a Europe dominated by Germany. But whether England or Ger- many wins this war, Western civilization will still depend upon two great centers, one in each hemisphere. With all the aids of modern Science, neither of these centers is in a position to attack the other successfully as long as the defenses of both are reasonably strong. A war between us could easily last for generations, and bring all civilization tumbling down, as has happened more than once before. An agreement between us could maintain civilization and peace throughout the world as far into the future as we can see. But we are often told that if Germany wins this war, Cooper¬ ation will be impossible, and treaties no more than scraps of paper. I reply that Cooperation is never impossible when there is sufficient gain on both sides, and that treaties are seldom torn apart when they do not cover a weak nation. I would be among the last to advocate depending upon treaties for our na¬ tional safety. I believe that we should rearm fully for the defense of America, and that we should never make the type of treaty that would lay us open to invasion if it were broken. But if we refuse to consider treaties with the dominant nation of Europe, regardless of who that may be, we remove all possiblity of peace. War and Peace, Two Historie Speeches 97 Charles Lindbergh speaks out against the campaign to push the United States into war. Nothing is to be gained by shouting names and pointing the finger of blame across the ocean. Our grandstand advice to England, and our criticism of her campaigns, have been neither wanted nor helpful. Our accusations of aggression and barbarism on the part of Germany, simply bring back echoes of hypocrisy and Versailles. Our hasty condemnation of a French government, struggling desperately to save a defeated nation from complete collapse, can do nothing but add to famine, hatred, and chaos. If we desire to keep America out of war, we must take the lead in offering a plan for peace. That plan should be based 98 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW upon the welfare of America. It should be backed by an impregnable System of defense. It should incorporate terms of mutual advantage. But it should not involve the internal affairs of Europe; they never were, and never will be, carried on ac- cording to our desires. Let us offer Europe a plan for the progress and protection of the Western civilization of which they and we each form a part. But whatever their reply may be, let us carry on the American destiny of which our forefathers dreamed as they cut their farm lands from the virgin forests. What would they think of the claim that our frontiers lie in Europe? Let us guard the independence that the soldiers of our Revolution won against overwhelming odds. What, I ask you, would those soldiers say if they could hear this nation, grown a hundred and thirty million strong, being told that only the British fleet protects us from invasion? Our nation was born of courage and hardship. It grew on the fearless spirit of the pioneer. Now that it has become one of the greatest powers on earth, ours must not be the genera- tion that kneels in fear of future hardships, or of invasion by a Europe already torn by war. I do not believe we will ever accept a philosophy of calam- ity, weakness, and fear. I have faith in an American army, an American navy, an American air force—and, most important of all, the American character, which in normal times, lies quietly beneath the surface of this nation. An audio cassette tape with these two Lindbergh speeches is available from the IHR for $9.95, plus $2 for shipping. Hamilton Fish, a leading anti-interventionist Congressman, pro- vides a critical, first-hand account of Franklin Roosevelt’s war- mongering campaign in Tragic Deception, a 120-page hardback work. (Available from the IHR for $16.95, plus $2 for shipping. Stock No. 0601.) For more on Lindbergh and the America First Committee, see the following works by Wayne S. Cole: America First (1953, Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle Against American Intervention in World War II (1974), and Roosevelt and the Isolationists (1953). Why Holocaust Revisionism? THEODORE J. O’KEEFE T he “Holocaust,” the alleged murder of some six million Jews by the German Nazis during the Second World War, has in recent years come under increasing fire from the Revisionists, those unconventional historians who challenge orthodox versions of past events. Researchers such as Arthur Butz, Robert Faurisson, David Irving, and Wilhelm Stäglich have become famous (some would say notorious) around the world for their scholarly critique of the claim that Hitler and his followers sought to exterminate European Jewry during the war, killing millions by poison gas and other means. There are those who would suppress the Revisionists by restricting their freedom of research and expression, and indeed the Revisionists have suffered physical attacks and legal sanctions, even in countries which take pride in being “open societies.” Many more people, however, are not so much hostile to the Revisionists as they are simply puzzled by them. They have questions about Holocaust Revisionism, questions like these: “What motivates these Revisionists? Are they simply Nazis, seeking to rehabilitate the Hitler regime? Even if some of their facts are correct, does it really matter if the number of Jews who died in the war was ‘only’ a million and a half? Or half a million? Or just one? And even if the Revisionist case against the Holocaust could be proved, what difference does it make what did or didn’t happen to some Jews in Europe fifty years ago? Why not stick to issues that are more important—and safer?” To answer these questions, it is necessary to say something about the origins of modern Historical Revisionism. While conscientious historians have always attempted to “correct” the errors and omissions of their predecessors, modern Revisionism dates from the First World War. That great and terrible war was the first in history to affect people in every 100 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW corner of the globe. It brought the great empires of Europe, their colonies in Asia and Africa, and finally the independent nations of the Americas into conflict on an unprecedented scale. Technology developed fearsome new weapons—air¬ planes, submarines, tanks, machine guns, poison gas—to gain military victories. A different sort of technology—directed at the minds, not the bodies, of men—was raised to new levels of effectiveness. While both sides—the German-led Alliance and the Franco- British-Russian Entente—lured the political and financial leadership of the neutral nations in secret with bribes and promises, they wooed the masses at home and abroad with Propaganda. Each side depicted its own war aims as a mighty crusade for peace and freedom, and those of its enemies as a diabolical grab for world domination. Even more effective was the so-called “atrocity Propaganda,” which attributed every crime imaginable to the enemy. And the undisputed masters of “atrocity Propaganda” were in the Allied camp. Their mastery of the Propaganda weapon gave the world such images as the Belgian-baby-killing Hun, the crucified Canadian, a corpse factory in which the Germans processed their own dead, and a hundred others which raised Allied and neutral populaces to righteous and patriotic frenzy. Allied Propaganda helped Iure America into the war, tipping the scales to insure Allied victory. Then, Allied leaders forced the defeated nations, Germany and its allies, to sign humiliating treaties which stripped them of territory and col¬ onies, imposed crushing reparations and virtual disarmament, and, most galling of all, compelled the defeated to accept all responsibility for starting the war. Soon after that war it had already become evident that much of what the citizens of America and the other powers had been told by their leaders about the causes, the conduct, and the aims of the war was simply not true. In particular, the vast majority of the lurid atrocities attributed to the Germans and their allies were admitted by the politicians and journalists who fabricated them to have been lies. A group of concerned scholars and laymen in America and other countries, who became known as Revisionists, became determined to establish the historical facts, as opposed to the government and press Propaganda, about the war. Within a decade Revisionist historians in America, England, France, Why Holocaust Rev isionism? 101 Germany, and Austria were able to demonstrate that the war had not been waged to save the world for democracy, and that Germany and its allies did not bear sole guilt for starting the war. One of Revisionism’s founding fathers was the young American historian Harry Eimer Barnes. Barnes would later define Historical Revisionism as “bringing history into accord with the facts.” Barnes’ study of the facts, as opposed to the Propaganda, of the years 1914 to 1918 taught him that, in his words, “Truth is always the first war casualty. The emotional disturbances and distortions in historical writing are greatest in wartime.” The hard facts which Revisionists had established about the First World War, only after a bloodbath which cost ten million lives, inspired Revisionists in America and elsewhere to resist their countries’ involvement in wars and interventions at the behest of politicians and bankers. But the rise of international Communism, which gained a firm base in Russia following the First World War, the crisis of capitalism in the worldwide depression of the 1930’s, and the emergence of authoritarian, anti-Communist, nationalist regimes in Europe and Japan set the stage for new conflicts. Unlike the years before 1914, the build-up to the Second World War found not only nations but supra-national ideological movements competing for power in every sphere of human life. Communists, Fascists, Nazis, and Zionists join- ed the existing nationalists, imperialists, and enthusiasts for “one world” in a no-holds-barred struggle in which, spurred by the world economic crisis, Propaganda technicians brought the arts of mass persuasion to unprecedented levels of achievement. By the outbreak of war in 1939, Germany had already been the object of a furious, international Propaganda campaign by the left, led by the Communists, and by the world’s Jews. Bri- tain’s formidable global Propaganda apparatus had shifted into high gear, particularly in anti-interventionist America, where British agents had set up a vast, clandestine Propaganda Operation with the covert agreement of President Franklin Roosevelt. When Germany and its European allies attacked Stalin’s Russia in June 1941, the uneasy truce between the Nazis and the Reds ended, and Moscow’s agents around the world began transmitting the Kremlin’s Version of events to an 102 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW often unsuspecting audience in the democracies. Such Pro¬ paganda influences, combined with President Roosevelt’s stealthy policy of entangling America on the side of the Allies, defeated the wise counsels of American Revisionists, promi¬ nent in the anti- Interventionist camp, and in December 1941 America entered the war through the back door at Pearl Har- bor. Although officials among the Western Allies, mindful of the cynicism which had followed the exploded atrocity lies after the First World War, at first tried to steer clear of more lurid and improbable accusations, as the Axis triumphed on all fronts Allied propagandists began to abandon their scruples. Meanwhile, Jewish and Communist sources had opened up a drumfire of allegations against the Germans, blasting them for every conceivable crime. By the summer of 1942 Jewish spokesmen were demanding that Allied leaders condemn the Germans for annihilating a million Jews and plotting the exter- mination of millions more. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin’s condemnation was forthcoming by December 1942; for the re- mainder of the war Jewish and Allied propagandists spread fantastic tales of Jews murdered by scores of methods, as diabolical as they were improbable: they were reported to have been steamed, baked, electrocuted, gassed, eaten away by quicklime, starved, shot, buried alive, mauled by wild beasts, subjected to sadistic experiments, and deliberately in- jected with lethal Chemicals or germs. According to the Pro¬ paganda, not even their remains were inviolable: their skins made into lampshades or riding breeches, their hair stuffed in- to mattresses or used to make slippers, their gold dental fill- ings swelling the Reich’s coffers, and what was left over turn- ed into soap or fertilizer. Even during the war, as Exterminationist writers have lately emphasized, there was widespread disbelief of the extermina- tion Claims among Americans and Britons, not to mention the peoples of the Axis nations. Allied policy-makers—Jewish, Communist, or Western democratic—mindful of the aftermath of the “war to end all wars,” took steps to insure that the war- time Propaganda would not be so easily discredited. Follow- ing the Second World War, they arranged for a series of trials devised to “prove” all of their atrocity Claims as well as to con- vict and punish their enemies. Germany, and Japan as well, were occupied by the Victors. The occupying powers wrote new constitutions, picked out new ruling elites, and imposed Why Holocaust Revisionism? 103 new modes of thought and methods of education so that the Germans and Japanese would absorb and internalize the Pro¬ paganda of their conquerors. Like most critical-minded citizens, Revisionist scholars and publicists had believed that eventually the exaggerations and fabrications surrounding Germany’s treatment of the Jews would be swept away after the war, as Propaganda and the passions it stoked were replaced by dispassionate gathering and analysis of the facts. They failed to reckon, however, with the rise of Israel and Zionism as a focus of allegiance for the world’s Jews. The Zionists regarded the alleged extermination attempt—and the seemingly miraculous rise of a Jewish state and nation which followed it—as the central myth of a reborn Israel. Jews seized on the Holocaust story as a means of rendering criticism taboo and support almost automatic for Israel and the Diaspora. Opponents of Israel were routinely compared to Hitler, while an endless and ubiquitous media Shoah business promoted Holocaust items and themes, from Anne Frank’s alleged diary to the latest docudrama, gradually raised the wartime extermination legend to an unassailable sacred cow. The Holocaust Propaganda became a tool to generate billions, first as reparations or aid, now as virtual tribute, from West Germany and America. The enemies of German nationalism, from the Soviet Union with its newly Consolidated satellite empire in Eastern Europe to leftists and jingoists in Western Europe, not to mention British “balance of power” enthusiasts and the would-be Caesars of an American imperium: all these forces had an interest in maintaining the Holocaust story as a barrier to free investigation of not merely the Jewish experience, but to any objective re-examination of the key historical questions of the Second World War. Nevertheless, despite what Harry Eimer Barnes’ called “the historical blackout,” a small cohort of open-minded and in- trepid writers in Europe and America began to challenge publicly the supposed magnitude of Jewish losses in Europe, and to examine critically the evidence for a German program to annihilate European Jewry. The Revisionists who called for skepticism toward Holocaust Claims, and began the hard work of bringing “history into accord with the facts” on this thorny issue, pointed out that the Holocaust was bad history. Paul Rassinier, the French pacifist and socialist who was himself interned in Buchenwald for his part in the French resistance, exposed the lies and exaggerations of his fellow survivors, 104 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW who blithely testified to the existence of an imaginary gas chamber. Early Revisionists, like Harvard-educated historian David Hoggan and German-American Professor Austin App, focussed on the disparities between the documented National Socialist Jewish policy and the postwar oral accounts of “sur- vivors,” the “confessions of German prisoners in Allied custody, and the self-serving testimony of witnesses for the prosecution. These and other Revisionist pioneers exposed the rickety Statistical foundations of the figure of six million Jewish dead, paving the way for a efflorescence of critical Revisionist scholarship which began in the 1970’s and flourishes today. The coming of age of Holocaust Revisionism is best symbolized by the founding of the Institute for Historical Review in California in 1978, enabling the publica- tion of the key findings of such Contemporary Revisionist scholars of the Holocaust as Arthur Butz, Robert Faurisson, Wilhelm Stglich, Ditlieb Felderer, Walter Sanning, Henri Ro- ques, Fritz Berg, Mark Weber, Carlo Mattogno, and many others. It should be emphasized that men and women who have dedicated themselves to determining and spreading the truth about the Holocaust are anything but Nazis or unconditional apologists for Germany’s National Socialist regime. In fact, Holocaust Revisionists neither subscribe to nor represent a fixed ideology. Politically, Revisionists have come not only from the ranks of the political right, but also from the left, and even from the ranks of the anti-statist libertarians and anar- chists. They run the gamut from fundamentalist Christians to militant atheists (and yes, like Joseph G. Burg and Bezalel Chaim, there are Jewish Revisionists of the Holocaust). Harry Eimer Barnes, for example, expressed himself with increasing frankness on the corrosive effects of the Holocaust Propagan¬ da in his last years, was a free-thinking humanist and pro¬ gressive. As a glance at the roster of the Institute for Historical Review’s editorial advisory committee reveals, Revisionists are not merely Germans or of German descent, but include scholars from France, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Lat- via, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa, as well as Americans of English, Irish, Swedish, French, and Italian ex- traction. Besides challenging the factual basis of the legend of a war- time Nazi extermination program for Jews, the Revisionists Why Holocaust Revisionism 105 have sought to establish a historical context for the undeniable persecutions and wrongs which were carried out against the Jews. In this context the Revisionists remind those critics who object, quite rightfully, that the murder of a single Jew is inex- cusable, that the willful exaggeration of Jewish losses is similarly intolerable: What man or woman person would con- done deliberately multiplying the number of children slain by Israeli soldiers and settlers during the Palestinian intifada? Revisionist scholars further attempt to compare the ordeal of the Jews during the Second World War with the ex- periences of other groups during that war and indeed throughout the course of history. Here the Revisionists are mindful of the unique status that most Exterminationists, par- ticularly Jews, have tried to arrogate for the Holocaust. Basing their arguments on the false premise that the architects of Ger- many’s anti-Jewish program planned the systematic killing of all the Jews of Europe, Exterminationists have often minimiz- ed the sufferings of non-Jewish civilians. Such has been the power of the Holocaust taboo that the losses of such victims of Axis invasion and occupation as the Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians have been neglected by the Establishment academy and media. It need scarcely be added that the Holocaust devotees who dominate the air waves, the press, and the schools guard against the shedding of even a single tear over the millions of German and other civilian victims of British and American bombers or of the hands-on brutality of Soviet troops. Above all, the Revisionists argue that the Holocaust story and its exploitation form a massive obstacle to the objective history of Western Civilization in the twentieth Century. The successful imposition of the Extermination thesis as an un- challengeable orthodoxy has helped Western intellectuals and opinion makers to shirk a confrontation with the far bloodier record of Communist regimes, as well as to gloss over sometimes comparable atrocities by regimes and movements, Left and Right, colonialist and revolutionary, around the world. By exploiting the Holocaust taboo, the ideologues of so- called liberal democracy are able to forestall any dispassionate analysis of ideas and movements tarred as “fascist” or “Nazi.” The inevitable result has been a general Version of the political and historical dynamics of this Century which is woefully in- accurate, is not merely useless but dangerous as an aid to 106 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW understanding the present and the future, and which serves only the short-sighted and selfish interests of small elites. For today’s—and tomorrow’s—Americans, the conse- quences of a continued refusal to establish and disseminate the facts, instead of the lies, about the Extermination legend can only be grave. For present-day America is in the grip of what can only be called “Holocaustomania.” The purveyors of this contagion—in New York, in Hollywood, in Washington, and in schools all across America—have been working in- dustriously for years now to convert the Holocaust from an alleged historical event to an active present reality. Their mastery of the media has enabled them to vend Holocaust Pro¬ paganda as edification and entertainment to tens of millions. Their grip on governments—national, state, and local— has allowed them to mandate national holidays in “remembrance” of this historical hoax, to construct museums and memorials for the exhibition of relics and the generation of hatred and guilt. Federal prosecutors and police hunt down “war criminals” fifty years after the fact—or often, the non-fact—but only “Nazi” war criminals—for justice, too, must yield its Claims to the Holocaust. Our children are being indoctrinated in a growing number of compulsory programs in the schools, programs which aim not merely at conveying information and reasoning ability, but which attempt to mold emotions and at- titudes through techniques of “group learning” and “enforced sensitivity” that recall those of the Communist Chinese in Chairman Mao’s heyday. Christian theologians grandly pro- claim that the Jewish tales from Auschwitz invalidate the Gospel of Christ, and that Christians and Gentiles bear a moral stain which can be expunged only by eternal allegiance to Israel. The next few decades will be dangerous ones for Americans blinded to past and present realities by Holocaustomania. Like it or not, Germany and Europe are working free from political and economic domination by the rulers of America and Russia. That they will shake free from the historical myths which served to dominate them spiritually is inevitable. In the Soviet Union, the archives are opening, the mass graves are being opened, almost invariably to the embarrassment of those who placed their trust in Stalin’s propagandists. Israel has become an international pariah everywhere except in America and among America’s dwindling number of subser- vient clients abroad. A country that can’t support itself Why Holocaust Revisionism 107 economically and daily violates the liberal and humane ideals it urges on everyone eise—as a matter of its own survival as a state—is not a fit friend for America. To rely on Zionists and their supporters in America to determine our perception of history—particularly through the distorted lens of the obsessive Holocaust hoax—is to court disaster. That is why intelligent, concerned Americans—and people everywhere—owe the Holocaust Revisionists a fair hearing. The brave little band of conscientious scholars and sometimes flamboyant publicists who have risked social and economic ostracism in this country—and physical violence and prison abroad in countries as diverse as France, Canada, Sweden, West Germany, Brazil, and South America—doesn’t demand blind faith or unquestioning adherence to a creed. What they ask for is the right to argue their case—from facts, not emo- tions or covert political agendas—in the public forum, in that marketplace that we Americans have fought to keep open to ideas, even stränge and unpleasant ones, ever since this coun¬ try was founded. For the Revisionists, the right to continue participating in what a French lawyer has called “the intellec- tual adventure of the twentieth Century” without legal or illegal harassment is quite enough. “Why Holocaust Revisionism?” I think Thomas Jefferson answered that question over two centuries ago, when he wrote: “There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.” NEW FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW “Still the best about the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, despite a formidable volume of subsequent writing by many others on the subject. ” —James J. Martin With all the elements at hand, the reader has the ingredients of a mystery. There are victims—3,000 of them in the Pearl Harbor attack. There are a variety of clues . . . a multitude of false leads . . . numerous possible motives. Innumerable obstructions are put in the way of the discovery of truth. Many of the characters betray guilty knowledge. From the Foreword to Pearl Harbor—The Story of the Secret War ARL MBOR The Story ot The Secret War George Morgenstern^ # mtfoduciion bv JAMES J. MARTIN - Did Morgenstern Unravel the Mystery of Pearl Harbor? Experts Comment: Brilliant and impressive —Harry Eimer Barnes A permanent contribution to the quest for an understanding of the tragedy —Charles A. Beard Discloses with great ability the lessons of secret diplomacy and national betrayal —Charles C. Tansill Mr. Morgenstern is to be congratulatea on marshalling the available facts ofthis tragedy in such a manner as to make it clear to every reader where the responsibility lies —Adm. H.E. Yamell ISBN 0-939484-38-2 Softcover • 425 pp • $14.95 I From Institute for Historical Review REVIEWS CHUTZPAH by Alan M. Dershowitz. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991. Clothbound, 378 pages, $22.95, ISBN 0-316-18137-4. Reviewed by John Cobden UT admit that my wife is outspoken,” the genial Jewish X comedian Sam Levenson used to say, “but by whom?” Levenson no doubt was unacquainted with Alan M. Der¬ showitz, the Harvard University law professor, columnist and man-about-politics. He has definitely never been at a loss for words, on every conceivable subject. Yet, as we see from the title and the numerous other words from Yiddish and Hebrew with which the book bristles—many of them shockingly “in¬ sensitive” to non-Jews—this one is not going to be a very con- genial read. Chutzpah, according to Leo Rosten’s Joy*s of Yiddish (1968), is from Hebrew and means insolence, audacity, gall, ef- frontery: “A Chutzpahnik may be defined as the man who shouts ‘Help!’ ‘Help!’ while beating you up.” As we’ll see, that may not be too wide off the mark as to what Dershowitz and Company are up to. Example: the author’s immediate and in¬ sistent use of the insulting epithet goy, which is roughly on a par with certain now-banned English slang for other races. As Rosten uneasily observes, “some Jews use goy in a per- jorative sense,” which seems to fit most of Dershowitz’s ap- plications; so his decision to descend into this sort of calculatedly abrasive vocabulary certainly sets a bizarre tone for one trumpeted as a great civil libertarian who is deman- ding more sensitivity toward Jewish and “minority” concerns. Moreover, it seems an oddly Orwellian doublespeak from the Principal architect of the sinister and one-sided “anti-hate” (or better, anti-White) laws now being hammered into place across the country. Why this book, now? Unless one naively accepts that books are unalloyed pearls of wisdom dropped into our laps by a benign Providence, skepticism about the real motives for their writing and Publishing is always in order. Dershowitz makes 110 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW pompous allusions to the Jewish “literary and oral tradition that goes back thousands of years,” to “documenting my journey as a Jew,” and the like, but he probably has more mun- dane fish to fry. Readers of Dershowitz’s newspaper column will recognize much recycled material, cobbled together in a sometimes rambling and always topical style that probably will not have an extended “shelf life.” Aside from their long-term saleability, however, several of Dershowitz’s themes are of current import and show us what he and other chutpahniks are really con- cerned with: “anti-Semitism,” Holocaust Revisionism, and the rise of populist political rebels, such as Pat Buchanan and David Duke, who are less than reverential to the primacy of Jewish and Israeli concerns in modern America. On the whole, Chutzpah will be a familiär litany to con- noisseurs of dual-loyalist special pleading. Certain key terms are hammered insistently, with the first “Holocaust” in the se- cond paragraph and the first “anti-Semitism” in the sixth. From there on, the cumulative effect of these dismal epithets begins almost to resemble the chanting of Oriental mantras, or the chattering of commercial trademarked jargon in advertis- ing jungles. Such heavily loaded proprietary terms and others, such as “bigotry,” “prejudice,” and “hatred,” are worked into the context of every subject subsequently discussed. I am not convinced that even so alert a writer as Dershowtiz is entirely aware of how compulsively he belabors this woeful cant, and of what impression the average intelligent reader must take away. Dershowitz offers some of his deepest ruminating on what he calls his “Holocaust mentality”: . .. The Holocaust remains the most formative event in my ex- perience. I cannot escape—nor do I try—its continuing in- fluences on my life . . . The Holocaust changed the nature of Judaism and of Jews forever... It changed the way every com- passionate person views justice and injustice. It should challenge the faith of every thinking being . . . [It] makes it possible to contemplate, without welcoming, the destruction of the human species . . . With that turgid commitment to the legend, it is not surpris- ing that he lashes out in acrimony at the proliferating interna¬ tional scholarship suggesting that attempted extermination of Jewry ever happened. Reviews 111 ***** Dershowitz deplores the lack of an adequate “Jewish revenge movement” after the war. Maintaining that the Nuremberg trials did not prosecute significant numbers, he is seemingly oblivious to the historically unprecedented spec- tacle of the “Nazi war crimes” trials that continue to wear on a half-century after the war. Such an extreme notion of ‘Jewish revenge” leads him, perhaps inevitably to the ultimate in venom: lending his endorsement implicitly, to the genocidal Morganthau Plan for the impoverishment and deindustrializa- tion of Germany as what should have been done: “They should have suffered—as a people—after the Holocaust.” So much for the objectivity credentials of an American in- tellectual icon who feels compelled, apparently for the first time in a major establishment-produced book, to attempt a refutation of some themes of “Holocaust” Revisionism. We may be quite certain that such a clear departure from the previous “silent treatment” in major media indicates growing alarm and intent to quench a persistent brush-fire before it gets any larger. If that is the plan, however, it will have to be far better ad- dressed than it is. Either from his own obvious unfamiliarity with the subject and evident reliance on often outdated file material supplied from elsewhere, or from his inability to quickly dispose of truly important issues with the ad hominem insults and quick snippets of casuistry that he favors, Der- showitz’s foray into anti-Revisionism is decidedly inadequate. A case in point is his handling of a “Holocaust” dubiety by columnist Patrick Buchanan. While pondering the likelihood of the Treblinka camp’s supposed diesel-powered gas chambers, Buchanan had noted a 1988 incident in which 97 children who were trapped deep Underground in a Washington, D.C., tunnel while two locomotives billowed ex¬ haust fumes into the car emerged unscathed after 45 minutes. Dershowitz tilts at this modest item of Revisionism by quip- ping that he had “challenged Buchanan to test his hypothesis by locking himself in an airtight chamber in which diesel ex¬ haust is pumped,” and by echoing a Jewish writer in the New Republic magazine who opined that “much of the material on which Buchanan bases his columns (about the Holocaust) is sent to him by pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic cranks.” Clearly, this is not major-league historical analysis, whatever Dershowtiz’s 112 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW academic affiliations. He will have to do better, or deal with other subjects, to avoid further embarrassing that portion of the Holocaust lobby that pretends to an objective historical method. His discussion of the deplorable John Demjanjuk case, in which the Ukrainian-born, retired Ohio auto worker was deported to Israel and sentenced to hang as no less than “Ivan the Terrible, Butcher of Treblinka,” shows the “flip-side” of the Dershowitz mentality: Israel, right or wrong. Dershowitz won his spurs as a hair-trigger civil libertarian and defender of the underdog (plus a few over-dogs, like Claus von Bülow and hotel “queen” Leona Helmsley) whose ability to pounce upon and impeach trial evidence of the slightest doubtfulness is legendary. Yet in Chutzpah he vigorously defends every aspect of the Israeli proceeding, including the reliability of eyewitness testimony 40 and 50 years after the fact and the controversial SS identification card that sup- posedly placed Demjanjuk at a training site for “death camp” guards. Although the card had been supplied to the Israelis by the Soviet secret police and was denounced as a forgery by Demjanjuk’s lawyers, for Dershowitz there is no problem: Guilty as charged. Nor, as we know, is Dershowtiz perturbed by the fact that nowhere on the card does there appear a reference to a stationing at Treblinka: he has mused, in one of his newspaper columns, that perhaps Demjanjuk’s “killing fields,” were not at Treblinka after all! Elswhere in the book, Dershowtiz jokes about the KGB’s skill at retouching photos and fabricating documents when persecuting Russian Jews as spies, but then quickly adds that “skepticism about one source of evidence does not translate in- to criticism of the noble enterprise of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice.” However, a new wrinkle emerged in August 1991, when Demjanjuk’s lawyers secured “surprise evidence” from Soviet archives indicating that the so-called “Ivan” was actually a man named Ivan Marczenko. The Israelis may well feel themselves forced to reopen the case. If so, one wonders whether Dershowitz will be critical of the new evidence, or whether he will acknowledge his, OSI’s, and Israel’s mistakes in justly evaluating the Soviet and survivor evidence. Reviews 113 j)C jfc j)C j)C 3fc Dershowtiz purveys his own extreme take on the interests of the “organized Jewish community,” as he calls it: —The Jonathan Pollard spy case: Dershowtiz thinks Pollard was treated unfairly, possibly with bigotry, in getting a life sentence for spying for “an ally,” Israel, and should now be freed; —Limits on Jewish enrollements at elite universities: there shouldn’t be any (Jews constitute 2.5 per cent of the U.S. population [according to Dershowitz], but represent more than ten times that proportion at Harvard and similar schools); affirmative-action quotas for non-Whites are desirable as well, and thus room for them must be made by reducing “WASP” enrollment; —Limits on Jewish immigration: There should be no curbs on “the ongoing relocation of world Jewry to the United States and Israel. . because “no Jew should ever be compelled to go anywhere, just as they should never be excluded from anywhere.” (Remember, the title is Chutzpah!) Without a doubt, however, his ruling obsessions—“the Holocaust,” Israel, and the ever-menacing specter of “anti- Semitism—are overriding. He picks a fight, for instance, with a Jew who is unwilling to claim a “special indulgence” for his people stemming from their sufferings at Auschwitz. Not sur- prisingly, Dershowtiz’s notion is that “The world owes Jews, and the Jewish state, which was built on the ashes of Auschwitz, a special understanding . . . The Holocaust per- suaded the world—Jews as well as non-Jews—of the necessity for a Jewish state.” Given these assumptions, it is easier to understand what a yawning abyss the possible undoing of the “Holocaust” legend presents to fanatical partisans such as Der¬ showitz. In the end, though, many of Dershowtiz’s readers will be left with a nagging sense of something seriously awry, something which shines through the author’s red weiter of angry hyper- bole, His notable Professional and financial success at levels far above those of all but a few Americans, is frequently and boastfully paraded by the author, against the incongruous backdrop of dark-age specters of persecution and bigotry 114 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW which menace Dershowitz and his people, even in America. I keep thinking back to the highly insightful words of another Jewish writer, Howard F. Stein, writing in The Jour¬ nal of Psychohistory (Fall, 1978) on “Judaism and the Group- Fantasy of Martyrdom.” Following up on this peculiarly modern phenomenon, the victim-as-victor, for The Journal of Historical Review (Winter, 1980), Dr. Stein writes with clear insight in his article, “The Holocaust and the Myth of the Past as History”: For the Jews, the term “Holocaust” does not simply denote a single catastrophic era in history, but is a grim metaphor for the meaning of Jewish history. The word “Holocaust” lies at the heart of the Jewish experience of time itself. One is either anx- iously awaiting persecution, experiencing persecution, recovering from it, or living in a period that is a temporary reprieve from it. According to an oft-quoted Yiddish phrase, It’s “tough to be a Jew” (“schwer tsoo zine a Yid M ). No doubt, but just possibly, Mr. Dershowitz might find that a bit less chutzpah and a bit more psychological self-examination would make things easier for everyone. ALBION’S SEED: FOUR BRITISH FOLKWAYS IN AMERICA by David Hackett Fischer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, hardbound, 946 pages, illustrations, maps, index, $39.95. ISBN 0-19-503794-4. Reviewed by Nelson Rosit D avid Hackett Fischer has performed several notable Services in writing Albion’s Seed. First, he has brought to American historiography the approach of the French school of the Annales begun by Georges Dumezil and developed further by Fernand Braudel. French social historians have been concerned with both continuity and change over long periods of time. American historians of the 20th Century have written history that is almost exclusively concerned with the new. Reviews 115 Second, Fischer has sought to write a total or unified social history rather than a historical fragment. As the author explains in the preface: Instead of becoming a synthesizing discipline it [U.S. social history] disintegrated into many special fields—women’s his¬ tory, labor history, environmental history, the history of aging, the history of child abuse, and even gay history—in which the work became increasingly shrill and polemical. (p. ix). This book is a comprehensive, almost encyclopedic, guide to the origins of colonial American culture. The third achievement of Albion’s Seed is that it “searches for a way beyond reductive materialist models” for causality in history. Professor Fischer, though of German Lutheran stock, teaches at Brandeis. Predictably, he disavows any racial determinist theories. Fourth, Fischer brings back from recent oblivion the colorful regional stereotypes of American history. New Engländers really were puritanical; Southern gentlemen genuine aristocrats; Quäkers were very pious; and Southern highland clans feuded as they had in the old country. Fischer’s basic thesis is that although less than 20% of the present U.S. population has British antecedents, our British genesis is still the dominant factor determining our culture. This formative British culture, however, was not monolithic. America still reflects the regional, religious, and dass divisions of 17th and 18th Century B ritain. According to Fischer, the foundation of American culture was formed from four mass emigrations from four different regions of Britain by four different socio-religious groups. New Englands constitutional period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, most from East Anglia, settled there. The next mass migration was of Southern English cavaliers and their servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. Then, between 1675 and 1725 thousands of Quäkers, led by William Penn settled the Delaware Valley. Finally, English, Scots, and Irish from the borderlands settled in Appalachia between 1717 and 1775. Each of these migrations produced a distinct regional culture which can still be seen in America today. The plotting of cultural continuities of long duration inevitably leads to the question of causality. As stated above, 116 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Fischer discounts race as a factor in such continuity. He does so in a very brief and completely unconvincing discussion. Of course there is overwhelming historical evidence for race being one very important factor in determining culture. For example, racial change within a society inevitably brings about fundamental and lasting cultural change. Although Fischer disallows the racial factor there is still much of interest for the Student of race in Albion’s Seed. The book for instance, lends weight to those who see a Teutonic/Celtic split between the American North and South, the thoery is that the Puritans and Quäkers came from the areas of England with heavy Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian influences while the cavaliers and Southern high-landers originated from the more Celtic areas. East Anglia, as its name implies, was the home of the Angles, the regions where the epic Beowulf originated and after became part of Danelaw. The North Midlands, the Quaker stronghold, has a heavy concentration of Scandinavian place names. “From the Norsemen came the custom of moots, or assemblies in the open at a standing-stone or hilltop grave, which may have influenced the Quäkers’ love for such meeting places,” quotes Fischer from another historian (p. 446). Instead of the town meetings of the Puritans or the Friends meetings of the Quäkers, Southerners, whether cavaliers or highlanders, tended to be less communal and more individualistic; less collective and more libertarian. The Nordic aesthetic is not totally neglected either. The author relates the story of a “Latin adventurer named Francisco de Miranda” who visited America in 1784. While here he attended a Quaker meeting which he describes in his journal: I entertained myself . . . by examining slowly the dress and the countenance of the female concourse and I can assure you with all ingenuousness that neither more simplicity, cleanliness and taste in the first nor natural and simple beauty in the second can be imagined. I am firmly persuaded that the coloring of Rubens and the carnations of Titian can never imitate what nature offers her in the hue and complexion of simple Quaker women who have not a grain of powder or drop of oil on their persons. (p. 551). As Fischer wrote his conclusion in 1988 he saw the continued dominance in America of cultural values and Reviews 117 institutions originating in Britain. The author supposes that if Anglo-American culture can remain pre-eminent while the British ethnic component sinks to less than 20% such a culture can survive any manner of racial change. Unfortunately, there are several factors the author does not consider. While America is less than 20% British, it is still 60% northern European. The main reason America has remained so British culturally is because the millions of German, Irish, Scandivanians, Dutch, and other Europeans who came to these shores, along with their descendents were close enough racially to assimilate culturally. Millions of Americans who are not ethnically Anglo-Saxon are culturally Anglo-Saxon. To make his point Fischer has somewhat overstated his case for the continuity of British culture in America. Certainly the formative or constitutional period of America was overwhelmingly the work of British peoples. Many of their values and institutions remain. But how much of mass culture; the products of the entertainment industry and the mass media, can still trace its origins to 17th and löth Century England? Perhaps the last volume (Albion’s Seed is the first of a five volume cultural history of America) will deal with these concerns. Whether or not Professor Fischer provides the right answers, he has asked the right questions. To finish enumerating the accomplishments of the book, probably the work’s greatest asset is that it asks the right questions. The author asks, “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” To be useful, history should ask the big questions, the questions of collective identity and purpose. Asking the right questions is half the battle. 118 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW (Continued from page 1) In our lead article, “A Dry Chronicle of the Purge,” French scholar (and frequent Journal contributor) Robert Faurisson takes a look at the wave of mass terror that swept France dur- ing the 1944-1946 period. Although the Purge (or öpuration in French) was almost certainly the worst single outbreak of mass killing in French domestic history, few Americans know anything about it. In this essay, Dr. Faurisson details the grim record of the Purge in just one small region of France, and thus gives an idea of the nationwide scope of the bloodletting. Perhaps the best single account available in English of this grim period is contained in Sisley Huddleston’s fascinating first-person overview, France: The Tragic Years, 1939-1947. Huddleston, who was born in England and lived most of his life in France, was Paris director of the London Times and European correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor. He contributed to a score of British and American periodicals, and was the author of some twenty books. In France: The Tragic Years , he writes: There has never been, in the history of France, a bloodier period than that which followed the Liberation of 1944-1945. The massacres of 1944 were no less savage than the massacres of Jacquerie, of St. Bartholomew, of the Revolutionary Terror, of the Commune; and they were certainly more numerous and on a wider scale. (. . .) It is estimated that 20,000 persons lost their lives under the [18th Century] Reign of Terror; that 18,000 feil in the frightful butchery that followed the war and insurrection of 1870-1871. The American Services put the figures of “summary executions” in France in the first months of the Liberation at 80,000. A former French minister later placed the figure at 105,000. (. . .) Authentic figures about the disorders and massacres of 1944-1945 are impossible to obtain but, in spite of belated of- ficial attempts to minimize the number of victims —in many cases innocent of any serious offense — the evidence points to a total of at least a hundred thousand persons — men women and even children —murdered (I can employ no other term) by in- dividuals, by criminal bands, by irregulär tribunals, by self- appointed bodies which proceeded , without trial, to what were euphemistically called “summary executions.” (. . .) (Continued on page 126 ) HISTORICAL NEWS AND COMMENT Pearl Harbor Attack No Surprise ROGER A. STOLLEY Historians are still arguing over whether President Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance that Japanese forces were about to launch a devastating attack against the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Mr. Roger A. Stolley, a resident of Salem, Oregon, has something important to add to this discussion. In the following essay, which first appeared in the Salem daily Statesman Jour¬ nal, December 7, 1991, he provides personal information to con- firm that Roosevelt not on ly anticipated the Japanese attack, but specifically ordered that no Steps he taken to prevent it. (Mr. Stollens essay is reprinted here with grateful permission of the author.) John Toland, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who ad- dressed the October 1990 IHR Conference in Washington, DC, teils us that Stolley’s essay “rings true.” E ach year near the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, I get angry at the lie perpetratred upon the U.S. people that it was a surprise attack. It may have been a surprise to the U.S. people, but it certain- ly was not a surprise to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the select few persons who surrounded him or the U.S. Army intelligence officer working under his direct Orders. I previously worked in a civilian capacity for LTC Clifford M. Andrew, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, who temporarily was assistant chief of staff, military intelligence, general staff, United States Army. My employment ended with Andrew on May 15, 1966 when a bullet entered the back of his head, ending his life. Upon at least three occasions in his home in Tigard [Oregon] he related to me the history of his military life and 120 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW personal involvement in the actions of Roosevelt and other of- ficials surrounding the Pearl Harbor attack. He said: Anything I now teil you I will deny ever saying. I am still sub- ject to military court martial for revealing the Information. The American public is completely ignorant of those affairs that oc- cur behind the scenes in top American government positions and Offices. If you try to teil them the truth, they won’t believe you. Five men were directly responsible for what happened at Pearl Harbor. I am one of those five men . . . We knew well in advance that the Japanese were going to attack. At least nine months before the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, I was assigned to prepare for it. I was operating under the direct Orders of the President of the United States and was ordered not to give vital intelligence information relating to the whereabouts of the Japanese fleet to our commanders in the field. We had broken the Japanese code . . . We’d been monitoring all their Communications for months prior to the attack . . . It was a lie that we didn’t have direct radio Communications with Washington, D.C. It was at least 48 hours before the attack that I personally received the most tragic message of my life . . . which was Top Secret and coded, which my radio operator handed to me. I had the code book and decoded it. The basic text of the message ran: “The Japanese will attack at (the approximate time). Do not prepare retaliatory forces. We need the full Sup¬ port of the American nation in a wartime effort by an un- provoked attack upon the nation in Order to obtain a declara- tion of war.” That message and my 40 file cabinets of top secret informa¬ tion on Pearl Harbor were taken out and burned by myself and two other witnessing intelligence officers so that the Congres- sional investigation could not get to the truth as to what actual- ly did happen at Pearl Harbor. For the people of the United States both then and now I feel sorrow, for a people to have been so misled, to have been lied to so much, and to have so thoroughly believed the lie given to them. Pearl Harbor is an example of how a small group of men in control of government has the power to destroy the life, property, and freedom of its citizens. How can this nation, or any nation, survive when its electorate is uninformed, when Historical News and Comment 121 its government hides the truth, labels it top secret, and destroys it. The most complete and up-to-date summation of the Revisionist view that Roosevelt anticipated the attack against the American fleet in Hawaii is Toland’s best-selling book, In famy: Pearl Harbor and its Aflermath. (The 398-page illustrated paperback edition is available from the IHR for $8, plus $2 shipping.) The best overview of the background to the fateful attack remains George Morgenstern’s masterful 425-page work, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War. (Available in softcover edition from the IHR for $14.95, plus $2 shipping.) For further confirmation of Roosevelt’s deceitful and illegal cam- paign to bring a supposedly neutral United States into war against Japan and Germany, see “Roosevelt’s Secret Pre-War Plan to Bomb Japan” in the Winter 1991-92 IHR Journal , and “President Roosevelt’s Campaign to Incite War in Europe,” in the Summer 1983 Journal. Hoover-Era American Plan For War Against Britain and Canada Uncovered A merican military officials drew up a secret plan in 1930 for war against Britain in which Canada would be the main battleground. “Joint Plan Red,” as it was known, envisaged the elimination of Britain as a trading rival. Professor Floyd Rudmin of Queens University in Ontario, Canada, charges that the plan was a blueprint for an American invasion of Canada. According to the plan, the United States was prepared to invade Canada if political unrest brought on by Quebec’s secession threatened American access to Canada’s fresh water and cheap hydroelectric power. The war plan document was drawn up by the Joint Board of the Army and Navy in May 1930, when Herbert Hoover was President. It identified Britain as Red, Canada as Crimson, Australia and New Zealand as Scarlet, and the U.S. as Blue. Its aim was to dismember the British empire on the grounds of “competition and interference with American foreign trade.” 122 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Describing the objectives of a possible war, the document stated: It is believed that Blue’s war aims in case of war with Red [Britain] should be the expulsion of Red from North and South America and the definite elimination of Red as a strong competitor in foreign trade. Plan Red called for a series of coordinated military attacks against Canada to deny Britain land and naval bases. A naval force from Boston would seize Halifax (Nova Scotia), cutting off Canada from the Atlantic Ocean. Other U.S. forces would occupy the gulf of St. Lawrence, isolating Quebec City and Montreal. American land forces would move from New York, Vermont and New Hampshire to take Montreal and Quebec City, much as American forces did during the Revolutionary war for independence during the 1770s. Other U.S. forces would cross into Canada at Detroit and head for Ottawa, Canada’s Capital. American troops would also take the Weiland Canal, paralyzing shipping on the Great Lakes, and would seize the power stations at the Niagara falls. Naval forces would blockade the Pacific at Victoria and Vancouver. It was envisaged that British, Australian, New Zealand and Indian forces would quickly overwhelm American bases in the Philippines and Guam. Out of concern that British forces might take the American-run Panama Canal, Plan Red called for a U.S. naval and air assault against British possessions in the Caribbean, including the seizure of Jamaica, the Bahamas and Bermuda. Christopher Cushing of the Canadian Institute of Strategie Studies in Toronto recently commented: The Americans would be threatened by economic and political instability. They would be especially worried about access to Canadian fresh water and hydroelectric power. It is the same motivation which sent them to the Gulf. For many years now, Quebec has been a major supplier of cheap hydroelectric power from dams on northern rivers to New York state and New England. The 94-page Joint Plan Red document is now in the National Archives in Washington, DC. Edward Reese, a military archivist there, noted that “there were [official American] color plans for all parts of the world.” Indeed, all major military powers have similar contingency plans for military Historical News and Comment 123 operations in different countries. Plan Red remained an active US military strategy until 1939, when it was superceded by Joint Plan Orange, which was directed against Japan. The Holocaust in Perspective A Letter by Paul Rassinier P aul Rassinier is the generaJJy acknowledged founder of scholarly Holocaust Revisionism. Born in France in 1906 and trained as an educator, he taught history and geography at the secondary school in Faubourg de Montböliard. Düring the Second World War, he co-founded the “Libö-Nord” Underground Resistance Organization, which helped smuggle Jews from German-occupied France in to Switzerland. As a result, he was arrested by the Gestapo in October 1943 and deported to Germany, where he was held prisoner until the end of the war in the Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps. After returning home, the French government recognized his courage and suffering with the highest decoration awarded for Resistance activities. Rassinier was also elected to the French National Assembly as a deputy of the Socialist party (SFIO). Rassinier was pro/oundly distressed by the many lies and myths about the concentration camps that were being circulated. Accordingly, until his death in July 1967, he sought to set the record straight in a series of books about his camp experiences and Germany’s wartime Jewish policy. A collection of his most important writings on the Holocaust issue has been published in an English translation by the IHR under the title The Holocaust Story and the Lies of Ulysses. (A new IHR edition of this collection is available from the IHR for $12, plus $2 shipping. Stock No. 0689.) What motivated this stalwart Frenchman who, in spite of internment and privation in German concentration camps, all but absolved Germany’s leaderhsip of the alle ged crime of genocide? What did he really think about the Third Reich and National Socialism? Rassinier helps to answer these questions in the following letter, which was provided by Mr. Myron Kok and is published here in English translation for the first time. 124 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW Dear Sir, May 8,1965 Thank you for your letter of May 3, 1965. No, I am not a supporter of National Socialism: I am a socialist in the historical and doctrinal sense of the word, and this has absolutely nothing to do with the interpretation which is given to it at present by the leaders of parties, incorrectly called socialist. If, therefore, I do not support National Socialism, this is simply a philosophical attitude: The Führer¬ prinzip [leadership principle] does not attract me; I am not on- ly a socialist, but also a democrat. However, when I correct the vulgär errors of the hysterical adversaries of Nazism, I do so because, although I am a Frenchman, I am also a European; these vulgär errors, committed with malice aforethought, have no other aim than to exclude Germany from the community of European nations and to abort the birth of Europe, something that is impossible without Germany—or, indeed, any other country on our continent. In the twentieth Century, the quarrel between Germany and the other European nations is a resurrection of the quarrel be¬ tween the Armagnacs and the Brugundians or between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. It is maintained at fever pitch by Bolshevism, which is the modern version of Pan-Slavism, and it aims at the Subversion of Europe, a Subversion against which Germany is our only shield. In 1965, the Slavs, who had been driven back by Charlemagne beyond the Vistual, are 50 kilometers from Hamburg. If they can engineer the collapse of Germany, they will, tomorrow, be in Brest and Bayonne. The lies which the Press pours out over Germany in a never- ending stream must serve as their moral justification. It is my intention to wring from public opinion the admis- sion that, in the war of 1939-1945, Englishmen, Russians, Frenchmen and Americans committed crimes just as horrible and in just as great a number as those attributed to the Ger¬ mans—whose real crimes are, however, very much open to dispute. I also wish to have it conceded that it is immoral to in- vestigate merely German war criminals, especially when the criminal nature of their behavior has been exaggerated, as has indeed been the case. I believe that, after a war, there should be a general amnesty for all combatants because this is the on¬ ly way to bring about an atomosphere of peace between the nations, and to avoid future wars. There is, of course, the Historical News and Comment 125 Communist danger, as well, which can only be warded off by a Europe, united in mutual and brotherly goodwill. That is my point of view: it defines my intentions. And it has, furthermore, the advantage of being based on a search for historic truth, beyond the rancors of outmoded nationalism. With my best wishes, Paul Rassinier. 126 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW (Continued fr om page 118 ) There was an almost unlimited field — an “open season” — for the öpurateurs [Purgists]. Everybody in France was a “col- laborator,” in the sense that he had at some time or other come into contact with the Germans. “In practice,” Huddleston goes on to note, “the gpuration was purely arbitrary.” The alleged crime of collaboration was often merely a pretext: Many of those who lost their lives in the Purge were actually victims of personal vendettas and hatreds. Huddleston also notes that many of the £purateurs were foreigners, and that the ad hoc tribunals that summarily sentenced alleged “collaborators” to death or imprisonment were often dominated by Communists. Among the Purge’s victims was the brilliant young writer Robert Brassilach, as well as several members of the Acadömie Frangaise. Another victim was the internationally renowned scientist Dr. Alexis Carrel, author of the brilliant work Man the Unknown. Our second feature piece is the postwar prison memoir of Hideki Tojo, Japan’s wartime premier. Like the memoir of any political personality, of course, Tojo’s writings are self-serving and self-justifying. Nevertheless, this material by a key figure of twentieth Century history is a significant historical docu- ment. We are proud to be able to present it here for the first time in English. Next, we present two historic speeches by Charles A. Lind- bergh from 1939 and 1940. Reading them today strongly underscores the drastic extent to which the basic Outlook and fundamental prevailing assumptions about life of Americans have changed during the last half Century. The reader may also be struck by the thought that few, if any, prominent Americans today seem capable of speaking with Lindbergh’s clarity, honesty and truthfulness. In a culturally distorted age that boisterously acclaims a figure like “Magic” Johnson as a hero and role model, it is refreshing to recall the life and legacy of an authentic American hero. In September 1939, just before Lindbergh delivered the first of his speeches against efforts to involve the United States in the war raging in Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to “buy off’ the aviator with a prestigious and comfortable Editorial Note 12 7 high-level post in his administration. Naturally, this would mean that Lindbergh would have to refrain from any public criticism of Roosevelt’s policies. The aviator promptly rejected the attractive bribe. In 1970, looking back on the legacy of the Second World War, Lindbergh reflected: We won the war in a military sense; but in a broader sense it seems to me we lost it, for our Western civilization is less respected and secure than it was before. In order to defeat Ger- many and Japan we supported the still greater menaces of Russia and China . . . Much of our Western culture was destroyed. We lost the genetic heredity formed through aeons in many millions of lives . . . It is alarmingly possible that World War II marks the beginning of our Western civilization’s breakdown . . . In the next essay, “Why Holocaust Revisionism,” IHR editor Theodore O’Keefe makes an eloquent and persuasive plea for a skeptical look at the orthodox Six Million extermination story. In the Book Review section, John Cobden critically reviews Chutzpah, attorney Alan Dershowitz’ best-selling manifesto. Then, in a review of Professor David Fischer’s acclaimed work, Albion’s Seed, Nelson Rosit discusses the lasting legacy of British migration to the United States, including the crucial impact of the British cultural heritage on American life, customs and thinking. In the “Historical News and Comment” section, we first pre¬ sent a startling essay by Roger Stolley that provides further evidence that President Roosevelt knew in advance about the December 1941 Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor. A short item follows that teils about a recently uncovered of- ficial document, “J°i nt Plan Red,” which outlines a startling 1930 contingency plan for war by the United States against B ritain and Canada. We conclude this issue with the text of a noteworthy letter by Paul Rassinier, the founder of scholarly Holocaust Revi¬ sionism. This letter, which is published here for the first time in English, sheds light on the motives and Outlook of this remarkable Frenchman. — Mark Weber 128 THE JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW About the Contributors JOHN COBDEN is the pen name of an American writer whose essays on political issues have appeared in nationally- circulated magazines and major daily newspapers, including the Hartford Courant and the Orange County Register. His writings on aspects of the Holocaust issue have appeared in The Journal of Historical Review and, in translation, in the French journal Revue d’Histoire Rdvisionniste. ROBERT FAURISSON was educated at the Paris Sorbonne, and served as associate professor of French literature at the University of Lyon in France from 1974 unril 1990. Dr. Faurisson is a recognized specialist of text and document analysis, and is the author of four books in French literature. After years of private research and study, he first made public his skeptical views about the Holocaust extermination story in articles published in 1978 in the French daily Le Monde. His writings on the Holocaust issue have appeared in the Italian journal Storia Illustrata, the French scholarly journals Annales d’Histoire Revisionniste and Revue d’Histoire Revisionniste, The American quarterly The Journal of Historical Review, and two books. As a result of his work, Faurisson has been the target of numerous legal efforts to silence him, and has been the victim of several violent attacks. NELSON ROSIT is an American writer who lives in the Washington, DC, area. Reserve Your Place Early for the October ELEVENTH INTERNATIONAL REVISIONIST CONFERENCE October 10-12,1992 (columbus Day weekend) in the Los Angeles metropolitan area -Back by Populär Demand- internationally Renowned Revisionist Holocaust Scholar Author of the forthcoming On the "Holocaust" PROF. ROBERT FAURISSON The World’s Leading Independent WWII Historian Author of Churchill's War, Hitler's War, The Destruction of Dresden, Hess: The Missing Years DAVID IRVING IHR Media Project Director, Director of CODOH Responsible for the Explosive Campus Newspaper Project Calling for Open Debate on the Holocaust BRADLEY R. SMITH Plus Six Other Distinguished Speakers to be Announced Along with a Mystery Speaker Master of Ceremonies for the Eleventh Conference Historian, Author, Lecturer MARK WEBER Come meet and hear these and other pathbreaking scholars. Enjoy three days of stimulating lectures and revisionist camaraderie in a comfortable setting with first dass accommodations. The $325 registration fee ($295 earlybird rate if you remit before July 31) indudes attendance at all events and meais. Lodging is available at additional Charge. Attendance is limited to space available. The IHR, Sponsor of this Conference, reserves the right to rcfuse admittance to anyone. Write today for more Information and your registration application. Institute for Historical Review 1822 1/2 Newport Blvd. • Suite 191 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 Highlights of the Ninth and Tenth International Revisionist Conferences are available on VHS videotape